[caption id="attachment_190417" align="alignnone" width="767"] Attendees of the service admire parts of the exhibition before opening remarks at the tribute to Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. on Feb. 27, 2023, at the Charles P. Sifton Gallery in the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse. Photo: Ryland West/ALM[/caption] Through his long and historic legal career, Sterling Johnson Jr., the second Black person appointed to the federal bench in Brooklyn, had occasion to both wield the power of government and to keep it in check—and was willing to do so by breaking convention. In one example, during the construction of a new wing in 1998 of the Brooklyn courthouse for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York—a longer-than-expected project that severely limited courtroom space—Johnson hauled out lawn chairs and held court in the adjacent Cadman Plaza Park. With lawyers and litigants on park benches, the judge called the proceedings to order while a marshal shushed a few chatty passers-by, The New York Times reported. This week, the Eastern District launched a photo exhibit, "The Extraordinary Life of Sterling Johnson, Jr.: A Legend in Public Service," to honor Johnson, who died last year at 88 after serving more than three decades on the bench.   Johnson grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn and joined the U.S. Marines after graduating from high school. After completing his military service, he joined the New York City Police Department.
After graduating from Brooklyn Law School in 1966, Johnson joined the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. He served as executive director of the Civilian Complaint Review Board. In 1975, he was named New York City's special narcotics prosecutor. Johnson was nominated to the federal bench in 1991 by President George H.W. Bush. He took senior status in 2003 and maintained an active docket until 2021. Among the hundreds of criminal and civil cases he presided over was a matter in which he order the closure of a facility in Guantánamo, Cuba, where HIV-positive Haitian refugees had been detained indefinitely. The exhibit, being held in the Charles P. Sifton Gallery on the first floor of the Eastern District courthouse, is free and open to the public on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. [caption id="attachment_190415" align="aligncenter" width="620"] From left to right: U.S. District Chief Judge Margo K. Brodie; Breon Peace, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District; U.S. Magistrate Judge Marcia M. Henry; Attiyya Akinwole, Judge Johnson's granddaughter; U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert M. Levy; and Robert Capers, chief probation officer for the Eastern District.
Photo: Ryland West/ALM[/caption]