Albert Tate, Jr.

Albert Jules "Al" Tate, Jr.​
Judge of United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, based in New Orleans​
President	Jimmy Carter​
Preceded by	New position ​
Succeeded by	John Malcolm Duhé, Jr. ​
Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court ​
In office 1958 ​ – 1958 ​
In office 1970​ – 1979​
Born	September 23, 1920 ​ Opelousas, St. Landry Parish, Louisiana
Died	March 27, 1986 (aged 67) New Orleans, Louisiana​
Resting place	Evangeline Memorial Park in Ville Platte, Louisiana
Political party	Democrat​
Spouse(s)	Claire Jeanmard Tate (married 1949-1986, his death)​
Children	Albert Tate, III Emma Adelaide Tate ___ George J. Tate Michael F. Tate Charles E. Tate Parents: Albert, Sr., and Adelaide Therry Tate ​
Residence	(1) Ville Platte Evangeline Parish​ (2) New Orleans, Louisiana​
Alma mater	New York Military Academy​ Louisiana State University ​ George Washington University ​ Yale University Law School​
Religion	Roman Catholic​

Albert Jules Tate, Jr., known as Al Tate (September 23, 1920 – March 27, 1986), was a long-serving Louisiana judge known for his leadership of the legal profession. A Democrat, Tate served on the Louisiana Circuit Courts of Appeal for the First District (1954–1960) and the Third District (1960–1970), the United States Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans (1979–1986), and the Louisiana Supreme Court (1958; 1970–1979), also based in New Orleans.​

Background

Tate was born in Opelousas in St. Landry Parish to Albert Tate, Sr. (1892-1973), who is interred in Ville Platte at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church Cemetery. and the former Adelaide Therry (1901-1939), a native of the Manhattan borough of New York City, who died in Manhattan at the age of thirty-eight. Judge Tate was nineteen years of age at the time of his mother's passing. No information is available on Mrs. Tate's burial, but her remains are not at Sacred Heart in Ville Platte beside her husband.

In 1937, he graduated from New York Military Academy at Cornwall-On-Hudson, New York. From 1937 to 1938, he attended Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1941 from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.. He received his L.L.B. degree from Yale Law School in 1947; he attended Yale from 1941 to 1942 and 1946–1947. He also attended the Paul M. Hebert Law Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, from 1947 to 1948, when he obtained legal credentials in Louisiana.​

During World War II, Tate was a special agent in the United States Army in the Far Eastern theater from 1942 to 1945. On April 23, 1949, active in the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Rotary International, Delta Kappa Epsilon, and the Knights of Columbus, the Roman Catholic men's organization. He and his wife, the former Claire Jeanmard (1927-1995). The couple had a daughter, Emma Adelaide Tate, and four sons: Albert Tate, III, George J. Tate, Michael F. Tate, and Charles E. Tate.​

Legal career

Tate was admitted to the Louisiana bar in 1948 and practiced law in Ville Platte in Evangeline Parish from 1948 to 1954, when he became judge of the Louisiana First Circuit Court of Appeal. Thereafter, he was presiding judge of Louisiana's Third Circuit for a decade; one of his law clerks was Bobby Culpepper, later a long-term lawyer and Democratic politician in Jonesboro in Jackson Parish. Tate became associate justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court for a brief tenure in 1958 and again for nearly the entire decade of the 1970s.​

During his long legal career, Tate held many judicial committee chairmanships and took an active role in promoting legal and court reforms. He was vice-chairman of the Committee on Court Modernization in 1972-1974 and chairman of the committee to Implement Standards of Criminal Justice from 1975 to 1976. He was on the board of editors of Judges Journal from 1972 to 1975.​

Tate was a member of both the Louisiana Bar Association and the American Judicature Society from 1948 to 1986. He chaired the Louisiana Judicial Commission from 1968 to 1970. He was a delegate to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1973, at which he served as the chairman of the style and drafting section. The constitution which Tate drafted was approved by voters in the spring of 1974. He was also a law school professor at LSU from 1967 to 1968, while he was simultaneously serving on the state Third Circuit Court.​

On July 31, 1979, Tate was nominated by U.S. President Jimmy Carter to a new seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on October 4, 1979, and received his commissionof office on October 5, 1979, having served on that court for the last seven years of his life.​

Tate wrote more than sixty legal articles, which were published in a variety of professional journals, as well as a legal textbook and a legal bibliography. He authored nearly fifty other articles on other topics. The Louisiana Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers presents the "Albert Tate Award" in Tate's honor. One of Tate's colleagues on the Louisiana Supreme Court, Mack Barham, wrote an article in the Louisiana Law Review. to honor his colleague's contributions to the law.​

Following Judge Tate's death in New Orleans at the age of sixty-seven, U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan nominated Republican former Governor David C. Treen to fill Tate's vacancy on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Democrat-controlled Senate killed Treen's nomination and the seat went instead to John Malcolm Duhé, Jr., a Republican attorney from New Iberia.

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