Name Thomas Michie | ||
Thomas Johnson Michie (June 7, 1896 – April 9, 1973) was a Virginia lawyer and federal judge.
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Family, education, and early career
Michie was the son and nephew of the founders of The Michie Company, a lawbook publisher based in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Michie attended the University of Virginia and the University of Virginia Law School, receiving an A.B. degree in 1917, an A.M. in 1920, and an LL.B. in 1921. He served in the United States Army from 1917 to 1919.
He worked as an in-house counsel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1921 to 1942, then rejoined the army for the years 1942 to 1946, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel in the US Army Air Force.
Citizen lawyer
Michie engaged in the private practice of law in Charlottesville, Virginia from 1946 to 1961. The law firm he founded continues in existence. In those same years he lectured at the University of Virginia Law School. He was mayor of Charlottesville from 1957 to 1960. As mayor, Michie counseled the white citizens of Charlottesville to accept desegregation "as good citizens should." Michie was "a strong, strong leader in trying to work out an acceptable pattern of integration."
Judgeship
Michie was nominated by President John F. Kennedy on May 11, 1961, to a seat vacated by Roby C. Thompson, on the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. The United States Senate confirmed his nomination on June 27, 1961. Michie was the third Charlottesville area lawyer to sit on that court, preceded by Alexander Rives and Armistead Mason Dobie.
In 1963, Judge Michie began the tradition of conducting naturalization ceremonies at Monticello on Independence Day. Michie was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, owner of Monticello.
Along with his colleagues, including Judges Ted Dalton and John Paul, Judge Michie implemented the decision of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education in Western Virginia. In 1961, Judge Michie ordered the admission of black students to the high school in Lynchburg, Virginia. In 1965, Judge Michie ruled that the school board of Giles County, Virginia violated the Fourteenth Amendment by the dismissal of all of its African-American teachers in the course of integrating its school system.
In connection with the civil rights demonstrations in Danville, Virginia in 1963, Judge Michie chose to abstain from exercising jurisdiction over a petition filed by William Kunstler to obtain a federal court injunction against the criminal prosecution of the demonstrators.
Michie assumed senior status on November 6, 1967. Because of indecision by Virginia Democrats, President Lyndon B. Johnson failed to nominate a successor, and instead the choice of Michie's successor fell to the next president, Richard Nixon, who nominated H. Emory Widener, Jr. on June 19, 1969.