Imagine the conversations about law that could take place over the holidays when U.S. District Judge Raymond A. Jackson gathers with other family members.
His wife, Gwendolyn Jones Jackson, is a judge in Virginia General District Court’s civil division in Norfolk. His sister-in-law, Elaine R. Jones, directs the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund. One of his brothers is a magistrate in the Chesapeake courts.
“He comes from a family of achievers,” said Chesapeake attorney Eric O. Moody. “They’re all doing very well.”
But a special place of achievement is reserved for Raymond Alvin Jackson, 48, who in 1993 became just the second black federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia when he began sitting on the bench in downtown Norfolk.
With a firm hand, an occasional slight smile, or sometimes a threatening tenor in his voice, Jackson has been commanding respect during the federal fraud and perjury trial of failed restaurateur David J. Merritt.
But he also can show a light touch, especially with the jury.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said one day last week, as attorneys approached him, “this is just going to be a bad day for bench conferences. Stand up while we get through this.”
Jackson, a Southampton County native, receives high marks from many attorneys and associates for his conduct, preparedness, and knowledge of the law.
“He’s very professional in everything he does,” said longtime colleague Larry W. Shelton, who earlier worked with Jackson in the U.S. Attorney’s Office. “He’s a very likable person, (but) in the courtroom, he’s all business.”
He also doesn’t mind courting controversy.
Officials, who spoke candidly when given anonymity, said things got “sensitive” among federal prosecutors when Jackson threw out federal drug indictments in 1995 against black defendants. Jackson had ordered the prosecutors to prove that the drug charges were not racially motivated.
The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later ruled that Jackson was incorrect because the greater burden of proof should have been on the defense.
In 1992, Jackson received some scrutiny because the Daily Press reported an apparent lack of oversight by the State Bar of Virginia involving attorney David M. Murray Sr. He committed suicide that year after stealing as much as $42 million. The State Bar is empowered to investigate and prosecute lawyers, and Jackson at that time headed the bar’s Committee on Lawyer Discipline.
Jackson examined the bar’s role in the failure to detect Murray’s thievery, and he decided that bar officials did not warrant criticism.
Jackson has earned high marks, both as an assistant U.S. attorney and now as a federal judge.
“He’s very sharp … ,” “He’s insightful …,” “I’m very impressed,” lawyers said in evaluations of Jackson published in the 1997 edition of the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary.
Many high-profile cases have landed in Jackson’s court this year.
He earlier sentenced the organizer of a large child pornography Internet site to 27 1/2 years in prison. Jackson also ordered life in prison for a James City County drug kingpin.
Jackson, through his aides, declined to be interviewed for this article because of the current trial involving Merritt.
But several officials, including his wife, agreed to interviews as long as they didn’t discuss the Merritt case, which will enter its third week today.
Jackson met his future wife while studying law at the University of Virginia, where he graduated in 1973.
“At U.Va. those days, we had very few black students,” she said. In her class, about 10 students out of 300 were black; the numbers were similar in Jackson’s class a year later.
“I imagine we discussed law on the first date,” she said, chuckling at the memory.
Jackson steadily rose through the ranks of the legal profession.
In 1977, he became an assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk. He started within a few weeks of Larry Shelton, and they became just the third and fourth blacks to be assistant U.S. attorneys in Virginia.
Jackson did both civil and criminal work for the office, said Shelton.
“Most of the assistants do either one or the other, but not both … for their entire tenure in the office. That was an excellent background for him,” said Shelton, who now is in private practice in Norfolk.
Several people said Jackson made a huge leap from the U.S. Attorney’s Office to the federal court bench, on which he has lifetime tenure. Some suggested, however, that had Jackson been white, he would’ve been a judge a lot sooner.
Others, speaking on background, said Jackson had to wait until a Democrat, Bill Clinton, became president to get the federal nomination. They suggested politics, more so than race, kept him back.
“He was very much qualified,” Gwendolyn Jones Jackson said simply.
In his spare time, Jackson likes to spend time in his garden and do woodworking – “he’s made several bookshelves in our home,” his wife said.
He’s an active member at Bank Street Memorial Baptist Church, where he was a trustee before he became a judge. He’s also a member of several bar associations and has been secretary of the Ingleside Communities Civic League.
Moody, the Chesapeake attorney, said Jackson had graduated by the time he began at U.Va.’s Law School. But Jackson, who had returned for additional training, was “very determined, very level-headed,” Moody said, and that inspired others.
“To see people like Raymond Jackson … you knew you could do it too,” said Moody. “That meant a lot to me.”
RAYMOND A. JACKSON
* Title: District Judge, Eastern District of Virginia
* Appointed: 1993 by President Bill Clinton
* Age: 48
* Education: Norfolk State University, B.A., 1970; University of Virginia, J.D., 1973
* Military Background: Captain, U.S. Army Judge Advocate General’s Corps, 1973-77; Colonel, U.S. Army Reserve, 1977-present
* Personal: Wife, Gwendolyn Jones Jackson, judge in Virginia General District Court; two daughters, one son
