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By editor Kathy Wray Coleman

HOME-GOING SERVICE FOR THE HONORABLE RETIRED CUYAHOGA COUNTY COURT OF COMMON PLEAS JUDGE CARL JULIUS CHARACTER

A TRIBUTE TO THE HONORABLE JUDGE CARL JULIUS CHARACTER

CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio-Funeral services were held Saturday, Sept. 1 at Mount Sinai Baptist Church in Cleveland for retired Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas judge Carl Julius Character of Shaker Heights, a former president of the National Bar Association who was among the first of three Black men to win a seat on the general division common pleas court  of Cuyahoga County.

Dr David A. Cobb, pastor at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Cleveland where Character, 88,  was a faithful member, delivered the eulogy titled "the Final Verdict."

The articulate Cobb said Character was a faithful husband, father and community servant and that his celebrated home-going was the 'final verdict."

He quoted the bible and specifically,  Matthew 25:21, saying "Well done thy good and faithful servant."

And he recognized Character's wife of 63 years, Dee Ann Character, as his soul mate who remained committed and in his corner, in sickness and in health.

Joseph Schwartz, national president of the Eagle Scout Association, praised Character as a community icon and said the judge was one of the first Black Eagle Scout's from Ohio.

Among others paying tribute to the beloved judge, who succumbed Aug. 24 at  the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center in Cleveland after a long battle with Lou Gehrig's disease, were Mount Sinai senior pastor, the Rev. Dr. C.J. Matthews, judges, Cleveland councilpersons, attorneys, community activists and Character's two daughters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

They included Common Pleas Judge Stuart Friedman, former Cleveland judge and former president of Cuyahoga County Council C. Ellen Connally, Cleveland Ward 5 Councilwoman Phyllis Cleveland, and the Rev. Cynthia D. Smith, an assistant minister at the prominent Olivet Institutional Baptist Church in Cleveland.

Rev. Smith, who read from the 21st psalm, was also among the speakers, as were Connally, and Judge Friedman, whose chambers were across from Character's when Character served on the common pleas bench.

Others there included Cuyahoga county Juvenile Court Judge Alison Nelson Floyd, Marlon Primes, an assistant U.S.  District attorney and president of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, former Cleveland City council president George L. Forbes, now a a part time Cleveland attorney and a former longtime president of the Cleveland NAACP,  former Cleveland councilman Jeff Johnson, who ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 2017, Cleveland Ward 1 Councilman Joe Jones, and well-known Cleveland activists Khalid Samad and Ada Averyhart.

Cordell Stokes, the son of the late Carl B. Stokes, the first Black mayor of Cleveland and of a major American city, and a the nephew of the late former Congressman Louis Stoke's, reminisced to the audience about the good old days, his father Carl and his Uncle Louboth law partners with the elder Character in their younger years.

The retired Connally was a staff attorney under Character before she was elected to the Cleveland Municipal Court bench and she descried her former boss as honorable and easy to work with. She said Character's funeral had come at a time when others of significance were being laid to rest, namely former music icon Aretha Franklin, and  Sen. John McCain, the former presidential candidate and Arizona senator who served 30 years in the U.S. Senate.

Councilwoman Cleveland, also an attorney and a former law clerk of the judge, said Character was a strong and fair  judge who drew ire from assistant county prosecutors under then Cuyahoga County prosecutor John T. Corrigan because he fought for fair play for Black defendants, many of them poor,  and others who came before him.

In turn, said Cleveland, prosecutors would often push unnecessary criminal trials before Judge Character rather than to accept reasonable plea deals.

Judge Friedman, who is White and will retire from the largely White 34-member common pleas bench of Cuyahoga County this year, said he had fewer trials and more plea deals in his courtroom because prosecutors were so busy taking cases to trial before Judge Character they had little time to try cases before him.

The services went on for some two hours and person after person stepped to the podium to honor the former jurist.

Longtime greater Cleveland attorney James Willis spoke, and was among a host of attorneys there that also included Larry Floyd, Antonio Rucker, Marcus Poole, and Gerald R. Walton, who also spoke.

Lucretia Bolden sang 'Never Would Have Made It' and flautist Herb Wilborn performed his rendition o f "Wind Beneath My Wings."

Dr Christopher Agnew, the judge's Eagle Scout mentee, also sang.

"My father was a deeply religious man." said Darla Character-Johnson, the youngest of Character's two grown children who spoke, as did Character's great God -daughter, Bianca R. Wagner Clark, and his brother-in-law, Elija Maryland, head deacon at Second Calvary Baptist Church in Cleveland.

Character's oldest daughter, Dea Character, also a lawyer like her sister and father, thanked

the Louis Stokes VA Medical Center and VNA care givers for their care of her father as he courageously battled Lou Gehrig's disease for more than two decades.

Dea Character's daughter, Amani Floyd, who is also a lawyer, said in her speech that her grandfather instilled many things in his grandchildren "but one of the greatest lessons was how to love."

Carl Character 's distinguished  legal career, first as an attorney and then as a common pleas judge, spanned some 30 years and drew recognition from congress per the initiation of then Congressman Stokes, who preceded Character in death.

A native of Cleveland who attended Cleveland public schools and graduated from Glenville High School, Character earned a bachelor's degree from Ohio State University, a law degree from  the University of Michigan, and a master's of law  from Cleveland Marshall College of Law of Cleveland State University. He served in the Korean War and was a member of the Norman Minor Bar Association, the National Bar Association, and Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity  Inc., and was a lifelong member of the NAACP, among a host of other organizations.

He and his wife Dee Ann were among the first Black families to purchase a home in Shaker Heights, a largely White middle and upper middle class suburb of Cleveland.

Judge Character is survived by his longtime wife, Dee Ann, daughters Dea Character and Darla Character -Johnson (John), eight grandchildren, and nine great-grandchildren.

Clevelandurbannews.com and Kathywraycolemanonlinenewsblog.com, Ohio's most read Black digital newspaper and Black blog with some 5 million views on Google Plus alone.Tel: (216) 659-0473 and Email: editor@clevelandurbannews.com. Kathy Wray Coleman, editor-in-chief, and who trained for 17 years at the Call and Post Newspaper in Cleveland, Ohio. We interviewed former president Barack Obama one-on-one when he was campaigning for president. As to the Obama interview, CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE AT CLEVELAND URBAN NEWS.COM, OHIO'S LEADER IN BLACK DIGITAL NEWS.