Pictured is Justice Melody J. Stewart, an Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals judge out of Cuyahoga County who won one of two open seats on the Ohio Supreme Court in November and was sworn in Jan. 31, becoming the first Black and first Black woman elected to Ohio's high Court
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CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio-Democratic Justice Melody Stewart, an 8th District Court of Appeals judge who was elected to the Ohio Supreme Court in November and became the first Black and first Black female ever elected to the state's seven-member high court, was sworn in Jan. 31 at the Moyer Judicial Center in Columbus, the state's capital.
She took the oath of judge of the Ohio Supreme Court from Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor, and with her new judicial colleagues standing and saluting her, six of them, including O'Connor.
"This is a historic occasion for our court and for the state," said O'Connor, the first female elected chief justice and a native of Lynhurst Ohio in Cuyahoga County. "By virtue of the approval by Ohio voters last fall, Justice Melody J. Stewart has become the first African-American woman to be elected to the supreme court justice of Ohio and has forever earned a place not only in this court's history but in the history of the state of Ohio."
Following a standing ovation and after getting sworn in Judge Stewart spoke to the many people in the audience,
She thanked the many family members, friends and colleagues at the swearing-in, and she acknowledged the milestone of the first Black and first Black woman elected.
"It is an honor and a privilege to be elected to any office to serve the public, but it is indeed a distinct honor and privilege to join this court of historic firsts" said Stewart. "In being the first Black or African-American woman elected to the supreme court of Ohio I join other historic firsts here, starting with Florence Ellinwood Allen, who, in 1922, was the first woman elected to this court."
Obie Shelton of greater Cleveland was among the performers, and performed a violin solo.
Elena Drakatos, president-elect of of the Ohio State Bar Association, and Marlon A. Primes, who is Black and president of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, were also among the speakers.
Several judges from Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, traveled to Columbus for the ceremony.
Most were colleagues of Stewart at the 8th District Court of Appeals.
"It was a blessing to see my friend, a former [assistance] dean and former colleague, sworn in as a justice of the supreme court of Ohio," said 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Anita Laster Mays on her Facebook page. "May God continue to shower you [Justice Stewart] with his blessings."
Those there in support also included Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Alison Nelson Floyd, who is also Black, and 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Patrica Ann Blackmon, a former Cleveland city chief prosecutor and one of two Black females first elected to a state appeals court in Ohio.
The other Black female first elected to a state appeals court in Ohio is retired 8th District Court of appeals judge Sara J. Harper, a former assistant city prosecutor of Cleveland, Cleveland judge, and Cleveland NAACP president.
Before now, Stewart, 56, was one of three Blacks, along with Mays and Blackmon, on the nine-member 8th District Court of Appeals that serves Cuyahoga County, a county that is roughly 29 percent Black, and the second largest of 88 counties statewide, behind Franklin County, which includes Columbus.
First elected to the 8th district appeals court in 2006, where she served for 12 years, Stewart's elevation to the Ohio Supreme Court leaves that court with two Black judges, Mays and Blackmon.
Michael P Donnelly, a Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge, won the other open seat last year to join Stewart as the two Democrats along with five Republicans on the state's high court.
Stewart defeated Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary DeGenaro in November, a Youngstown Republican appointed by then governor John Kasich to the unexpired term left by the resignation last year of Justice Bill O'Neil, and Donnelly won over Republican Craig Baldwin, a 5th District Court of Appeals judge.
Stewart won with 52 percent of the vote, and Donnelly had 66 percent.
Aside from winning the two open seats on the then all-White and all- Republican Ohio Supreme Court, Ohio Democrats lost down the ballot in 2018 as to statewide elections for governor, state treasurer, Ohio attorney general, secretary of state and state auditor, a remake of 2014 and 2010 when Democrat Ted Strickland lost reelection to term-limited GOP governor John Kasich.
Mike DeWine, then the Ohio attorney general, won for governor over Democrat Richard Chordray, a consumer watchdog with the Obama administration, and a former Ohio attorney general too.
Cleveland area community activists had endorsed Judge Stewart, who has widespread appeal across the state.
"It is long overdue that a qualified Black was elected to the Ohio Supreme Court, said longtime activist Ada Averyhart, 84. "Judge Stewart is more than qualified to serve on Ohio's highest court."
While other Blacks were appointed to the Ohio Supreme Curt and lost elections thereafter, and some ran straight out, none were victorious in convincing voters to elect them.
But they did pave the way for Stewart to make history as the first Black elected to the high court in the pivotal state of Ohio.
Justices Robert Duncan, Lloyd Brown and Yvette McGee Brown were all three appointed by sitting governors to the state's high court, Duncan, the first appointee who served from 1968-1971, opting not seek election because he accepted a federal judgeship.
Lloyd Brown and Yvette McGee Brown pursued a subsequent election bid but lost to White opponents.
The late former Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Cleveland, also a former county prosecutor, ran for election to the Ohio Supreme Court as did former Cleveland Municipal Court judge C. Ellen Connally, also a former county council president, as did former 8th District Court of Appeals Judge Sara J. Harper, also of Cleveland, and a Republican, unlike Tubbs Jones and Connally, both of them Democrats. (Editor's note: Harper once sat by assignment on the Ohio Supreme Court)
But all three of them lost, Connally nearly beating then Chief Justice Thomas Moyer for his seat in 2004, Moyer a seemingly popular Republican who died unexpectedly in 2010 while still serving on the bench.
Moyer was succeeded as chief justice by current Chief Justice O'Connor, a former lieutenant governor under former governor Bob Taft, a Republican who served as governor beteen 1999 and 2007, and a member of the Taft political dynasty.
A proponent of lifelong learning, Justice Stewart earned a bachelor’s degree in music from the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati, a law degree from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law at Cleveland State University, and a Ph.D. from the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University as a Mandel leadership fellow.
The distinguished jurist is a scholar by all accounts.
Prior to being elected to the 8th district appellate bench in 2006, Justice Stewart worked as an assistant dean at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law where she also taught as a lecturer and an adjunct instructor before joining the full-time faculty.
She was also a member of the faculty at the University of Toledo College of Law, taught at Ursuline College, and has served as an administrator at the law school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
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.
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