First black judge on federal appeals court dies at age 86

ST. LOUIS -- Judge Theodore McMillian, the first black judge on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, died Wednesday in St. Louis. He was 86 and still working nearly every day on the court, clerk Michael Gans said.

"I helped him onto the bench last week," he said. "He was in great spirits. He died very suddenly."

McMillian died at Barnes-Jewish Hospital after complications from one of his kidney dialysis treatments, which he received at his office so he could continue to work regularly, Gans said. There was no official cause of death.

The judge was the great-grandson of a slave, working his way through law school and college as a train porter and janitor, reported STLtoday.com, the Web site of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

He graduated first in his class at Saint Louis University Law School in 1949, but couldn't find work at the downtown law firms. He went into private practice by day and worked as a janitor at night to support himself.

St. Louis circuit attorney Edward Dowd hired McMillian as an assistant in 1953, making him Missouri's first black state prosecutor. He would become the first black on the state bench, the Missouri Court of Appeals and the U.S. Court of Appeals here.

In the 1950s, a hotel in Springfield refused to admit McMillian. The lawyers he was traveling with left with him, refusing to stay there, the Post-Dispatch reported.

Judge McMillian was never resentful about such slights. He told a friend in recent years, "Why waste time?"

His friends said he lived by the credo: "It's more important to be human than to be important."

One time, McMillian, other judges and law enforcement officials went to jail just to learn what it was like inside the system. He was given a fake criminal record, photographed and put into jail with prisoners so he could experience incarceration.

The experience and the years he spent as a juvenile court judge left a lasting impression on him.

He said he wished that hard-line jurists could see where they were sending prisoners before they handed down sentences. He helped bring about a series of reforms to deal with young offenders.

In 1956, Gov. Phil Donnelly appointed him to the St. Louis Circuit Court. In 1972, Gov. Warren Hearnes named him to the Missouri Court of Appeals.

President Jimmy Carter nominated McMillian to the U.S. appeals court, and the Senate confirmed him in 1978.

In 2003, Judge McMillian took senior status and continued to serve on the appeals court.

Services are pending.

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From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: www.stltoday.com