Pages

Total Pageviews

Thursday, April 13, 2017

United States’ first female, African-American Muslim judge found dead in Hudson River Wednesday April 12,2017


A groundbreaking black jurist who became the first Muslim woman to serve as a US judge was found dead in New York’s Hudson River on Wednesday April 12,2017, police said. 
Sheila Abdus-Salaam, a 65-year-old associate judge of New York’s highest court, was found floating off Manhattan’s west side at about 1:45 p.m. EDT (1545 GMT), a police spokesman said.
Police pulled Abdus-Salaam’s fully clothed body from the water and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
 Her family identified her and an autopsy would determine the cause of death, the spokesman said. 
Abdus-Salaam, a native of Washington, D.C., became the first African-American woman appointed to the Court of Appeals when Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo named her to the state’s high court in 2013.
“Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all,” Cuomo said in a statement. The Princeton Encyclopedia of American Political History said Abdus-Salaam was the first female Muslim to serve as a US judge.
A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School, Abdus-Salaam started her law career with East Brooklyn Legal Services and served as a New York state assistant attorney general, according to the Court of Appeals website. She held a series of judicial posts after being elected to a New York City judgeship in 1991

No comments:

Post a Comment