Partly-printed DS as president, one page, 20 x 16, February 25, 1952. President Truman appoints John James Malloy as an “Associate Judge of the Municipal Court for the District of Columbia.” Signed neatly at the conclusion by Harry S. Truman and countersigned by Attorney General J. Howard McGrath. The golden Department of Justice seal remains affixed to the lower left. Affixed to a same-size cardstock mount and in fine condition.
John James Malloy (1905-1991) was a New Orleans native who studied at the Washington (D.C.) College of Law and married Anastasia F. McGrath. He worked as an attorney in Washington in the 1930s, and he taught at the law school. From 1942 to 1951 he worked for the U.S. Justice Department, where he became the first assistant attorney in the tax division.
President Truman appointed Malloy as an Associate Judge to the District of Columbia Municipal Court in 1952. Malloy and his wife met Truman at 12:30 pm on Wednesday, March 5, 1952, at the White House, as recorded on Truman’s daily calendar. Over the next three decades, Malloy tried a variety of cases, ranging from shoplifting and check forgery to illegal drugs and murder.
In April 1965, during the Civil Rights movement, Malloy presided over a headline-making case involving a real estate agent charged with violating Washington’s new fair housing law. The acquittal occurred as President Lyndon B. Johnson called on Congress for additional civil rights laws and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. marched to raise civil rights awareness. The case angered civil rights groups. Malloy became a senior judge in 1972 and he retired from the bench in 1983.
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