Judicial Services and Civil Rights
Outstanding achievement has proven to be a running theme in the career of the Honorable Arthur L. Burnett, Sr, who entered college at 17 years of age committed to excelling in his academic studies. He excelled and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his Junior Year, majoring in political science with a minor in economics. He was approached by Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP at the beginning of his Junior Year to become a Plaintiff in the Prince Edward – Farmville cases involved in the Brown v. Board of Education case decided May 17, 1954 to compel Virginia to abandon massive resistance to desegregation and to apply to the University of Virginia School of Law and those other law schools in the top 10 in the Nation in the Combination College-Law School Program. He applied to Columbia, New York University, Boston and Syracuse, and his grades were so exceptional that he was admitted to all four (4) law schools without being called in for an interview, and he applied to the University of Virginia Law School, but his application there was not even acknowledged. At the end of his Junior Year he had finished three (3) and one-half years of requirements for a 4-Year College Degree from Howard University. He entered law school in the Fall of 1955 but not wanting to give up his academic standing at Howard University, he waived a degree under the Combination Six-Year program and elected to come back to Howard in the two summers between his regular law school classes and complete Howard University’s requirements for a 4-year degree, graduating summa cum laude in October 1957 and finished his law school program in June 1958 graduating in the top ten (10) percent of his Law School Class and having done actually seven (7) years of academic work in six (6) Calendar Years.
He joined the Attorney General’s Honors Program of the United States Department of Justice in June 1958 but shortly thereafter he was drafted into the United States Army as an enlisted individual but eventually was commissioned as an Army Officer in the Adjutant General’s Corps. In December 1960 he returned to the U.S. Department of Justice and in January 1961 he was interviewed by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and asked to become his Special Assistant to monitor all the major criminal cases coming into the Department of Justice and to monitor the Martin Luther King movement and civil rights activities. He worked in this role with the Attorney General until Robert Kennedy left the Department of Justice to run for the position of Senator from New York. In April 1965 Mr. Burnett transferred to the United States Attorney’s Office where he served as a prosecutor until December 1968, at which point he was appointed the first in-house Legal Advisor – now called General Counsel of the Metropolitan Police Department to assure that the police did not violate the civil rights of individuals and operated within the requirements of United States Supreme Court cases in all of their policing activities in the aftermath of the riots and destruction which followed Martin Luther King’s assassination in April 1968.
Mr. Burnett was appointed to the judicial system June 26, 1969, making history as the first African American United States Magistrate (now called Magistrate Judge) and he served in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia where he took a leadership role in improving the old United States Commissioner system and served as a deputy judge to then Chief Judge John Sirica in handling pretrial issues in the Watergate cases and Chief Judge Sirica’s entire ordinary criminal and civil Calendars. In essence he functioned as Judge Sirica’s deputy judge. In 1975 he left that position to become the Legal Advisor for the entire Civil Service System and in 1977 became an assistant to President Jimmy Carter in drafting the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and issuing Advisory Decisions throughout the entire Executive Branch of Government on harmonizing the merit system with the civil rights – equal opportunity obligations of the Federal Government. In 1980 he returned to the United States District Court of the District of Columbia as United States Magistrate Judge and served in that capacity until November 1987 when he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and served as one of its regular full time judges until October 1998, at which time he retired and took Senior Judge status, which meant he could continue to serve at any time the Chief Judge of the Court needed his services. He then also served as a volunteer as Judge-in-Residence to the Children’s Defense Fund and Chair of the Judges component of that entity. Finally, in 2003 he left that role to take on the role to be one of the three principal founders of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition, and upon its incorporation in the District of Columbia on January 12, 2006, also its Vice President of Administration, in addition to being involved in a number of other non-profit entities. Initially, while serving in these voluntary roles, he was on Sabbatical as a Senior Judge, but finally in February 2013 he retired completely from the judicial system. In the past 14 years he has focused on issues involving needed reforms in the healthcare system, especially in dealing with substance abuse and mental health matters on needed reforms in the juvenile justice and criminal justice systems and other areas of government impacted by policies arising out of the juvenile and criminal justice laws and policies, while at the same time eliminating unlawful discrimination, prejudice and implicit bias in the application of those laws and policies to make sure that an individual’s civil and constitutional rights are protected.
Mr. Burnett’s level of expertise and achievement in his field, and his commitment frequently of sixty to eighty hours a week to these objectives, has seen him affiliated with many professional organizations. He served as the Chair-Elect and later Chairman of the American Bar Association’s Conference of Special Court Judges in 1974-1975 as the first African American to hold that position. In the American Bar Association, he was later recognized by the Conference of State Trial Judges as one of the top three State Court Judges of a Court of General Jurisdiction in his role as a Superior Court Judge of the District of Columbia. In the American Bar Association, its Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Profession awarded him the Spirit of Excellence Award for his contributions in advancing civil rights and outstanding performance throughout his legal and judicial career. In the National Bar Association, he has served on the Executive Committee and as an Officer of its Judicial Council and was awarded in July 2019 its George W. Crockett, Jr. Lifetime Achievement Award named after the creator and first Chair of the Judicial Council of the National Bar Association.
In the Federal Bar Association, for several years he served as the Deputy Section Coordinator and then Section Coordinator of all of its Law Sections and subsequently as Chairman of its Audit Committee for a number of years. He also served as President of the Federal Magistrate Judges Association and also served as the President of the Prettyman-Leventhal Inn of Court. He served for a period of more than ten (10) years as a Faculty Member for the National Judicial College located in Reno, Nevada for judges from all over the Nation as a constitutional law expert on search and seizure law. Finally, he served as an Adjunct Law Professor in Howard University School of Law for 13 years in Trial Advocacy and at the Columbus School of Law of Catholic University for 11 years in Appellate Advocacy and at the college level at Bowie State University in Maryland in Criminal Justice and has been a guest lecturer at many other law schools and colleges.
He served as the Vice President of Administration of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition, Inc. January 12, 2006 until October 1, 2018, when he relinquished that position to another retired judge, because of his extensive involvement in a substantial number of other non-profit entities. The Founding Members of the Coalition included the National Bar Association, National Association of Black Sociologists, National Association of Black Psychologists, Howard University School of Law, National Black Nurses Association, National Association of Black Social Workers, National Dental Association, Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Inc., and the National Black Caucus of State Legislators. Today through his efforts and advocacy, the National African American Drug Policy Coalition, Inc. consists of twenty-six (26) member legal entities and the National Executive Director is responsible for collaboration with all of these member organizations on matters of drug policy and seeking equal justice for minority individuals in the legal and judicial systems. in dealing with drug policy and criminal justice matters.
He is also the President of the Youth Court of the District of Columbia, Inc. and Chairman of its Board, Secretary of the Mayor’s Commission on Fathers, Men and Boys, serving a 4-year term to end September 30, 2020, the Chairman of the Board of Rights Beginning, Inc., Vice President of Global Youth Justice, Inc., a national organization working with over 1,800 Youth or Teen Courts as a diversion program for youth who get in minor trouble to prevent future infractions and violations and to prevent them from even getting a juvenile record, these Youth or Teen Courts being located throughout the United States with some having even an international affiliation. He also serves as a Member of the Board of The 100 Fathers of D.C., and in this connection he is also the co-author of a Book entitled “Pieces Never Missing Required in a Child’s Life” which emphasizes the role of engagement fathers must have with their children to develop proper societal values and attitudes, and respect for other persons in society, thus preventing them from engaging in violations of the law and societal norms and reducing crime and violence in the Nation and making this World a better place for all of its human beings.