Ricardo M. Urbina

Summary of Oral History of Ricardo M. Urbina

by James E. Rocap, III

Judge Ricardo M. Urbina’s 9-chapter oral history is a fascinating, first hand account of a life well-lived, a life of compassion, understanding, insight and excellence. Judge Urbina’s life-long commitment to learning, discovery and then teaching, which in turn led to his extraordinary career as a judge, is perhaps best captured by this single observation: “One of the wonderful parts of being a judge is that the human drama plays out in front of you all the time, and in almost every instance you can find a piece of that drama that applies to you. The human experience. No matter what’s playing out, whether it’s anger or whether it’s fear or whether it’s lust or whether it’s passion, whatever it is you can catch glimpses of yourself in a way that helps you kind of understand.”
Conducted by Gene Granof, this oral history is remarkable for many things, beginning with Judge Urbina’s early life and athletic career. His parents were well educated and living in “very comfortable” family environments in their native countries (Honduras and Puerto Rico), but nevertheless decided in their late teens to move to New York City. Judge Urbina was born in 1946 in Spanish Harlem, the third of three sons. His older brothers left home when he was 9, leaving him “traumatized because I felt I was being left alone.” His family moved to Queens (still semi-rural at the time), where his parents felt he would receive a better education and enrolled him in a Catholic grade school.

Although a good student, Urbina began to run track in 7th grade. At the beginning, “I never won anything,” he recalled, but as he grew he became more competitive. In 1959, his parents enrolled him in Monsignor McClancy Memorial High School in Queens, an “extremely strict” (“the principal would come and measure your cuffs”) and “academically rigorous” school. “Most of the students were first and second generation, mostly Italian, Polish and Irish. A few Latinos. No dark Latinos like me.” Urbina did well academically, and by sophomore year decided he would be going to college. As for athletics, he dropped track his first year, tried basketball without much success, and then was recruited for the high school track team his sophomore year. With a good coach he quickly became competitive and people began to notice his abilities. By senior year, Urbina had thirty scholarship offers, ultimately deciding on Georgetown (with a full scholarship), where he was the first athlete of color ever recruited by the University.

At Georgetown (1963-1967), Urbina continued to excel academically and on the track, becoming an NCAA champion by junior year. Also in junior year, he decided to go to law school even though he had “never taken a law-related course other than social studies.” In his first year in law school (1967), he not only faced the daunting challenges of law school, he decided to compete to enter the 1968 Olympics. Judge Urbina describes with remarkable candor the challenges he faced that year, the refusal of the New York Athletic Club to sponsor him because of his race, and his near miss at making the Olympic team.

While most of the news articles reporting on Judge Urbina’s death focused on his track accomplishments and challenges, his oral history becomes more fascinating as he describes his legal career, his trial work, and his observations about juries, judging, lawyering and public service. In his third year in law school, Urbina volunteered at the Public Defender Service (then known as the Legal Aid Agency) as a part time student investigator. Convinced that he wanted to continue as an attorney there (“I wanted to do something that was more or less public interest and in keeping with my desire to make a difference”), in 1970 he applied for and was accepted as an attorney. He was one of four attorneys of color hired that year by Barbara Babcock, then head of the office, following criticism of the office “for not having enough minority lawyers.” He tried his first murder case in 1971 before Superior Court Judge Leonard Braman, “one of the smartest judges I’ve ever appeared before,” the details of which Judge Urbina easily recalls and shares.

Following two years with PDS, and two years and a short stint in a 2-person private law firm, Judge Urbina joined the Howard Law School faculty for the next 7 years of his career. He taught Advanced Criminal Procedure, Torts and a portion of the new Criminal Justice Clinic, also supervising students in trials. Judge Urbina recounts at length and in detail his years at Howard. Interestingly, while his criminal trial and procedure classes and clinics were the main reason he came to Howard, Torts became “his favorite course to teach.” Another reflection of Judge Urbina’s ability to meld law and humanity, he reflected that “Torts is kind of a human subject matter. There’s a lot of human interaction. . . . [E]ven in the most common situation, you find that the courts recognize that there are inherent rights and there are inherent duties and that people have those responsibilities to one another. In a society like ours where we’d like to think of ourselves as free, there are duties that limit our freedom because we cannot bring harm, financial or otherwise, to others.”

Judge Urbina may have left the Howard faculty in 1981, but he has never stopped teaching. Reflecting on what it means to be a teacher, he explains that “I found out that the real pleasure in teaching is not to transplant one’s ideas into other people’s minds, because that’s arrogant. You really can’t tell people how they should think, but to give life and vitality and vigor to ideas so that when they do assimilate them, it will create new ideas, and it will enlarge, it will advance them in their way of thinking, in their way of acting, in their way of serving the law, understanding that being a lawyer means being a servant, and feeling responsible in a way such that, as I mentored people over the years, a few of them are judges, a couple of them are congressmen, all at Howard, they come back to me and say, ‘Your influence was significant’ for this reason or that reason, and that’s become an aspect of joy as I look back on my teaching.”

In 1981, Judge Urbina was appointed by President Reagan as an Associate Judge of the D.C. Superior Court. He had been on the short list near the end of the Carter Administration, did not expect to survive on that list with the change in administrations, but was surprised to learn that, with the assistance of White House Counsel Fred Fielding, President Reagan took a direct interest in his nomination. Judge Urbina then spent 13 years on the Superior Court, starting out in the Family Division trying juvenile delinquency cases, followed by two years in Criminal, and then returning in 1985 as the Presiding Judge of the Family Division for the next three years. He considers one of his proudest accomplishments to have been shepherding the drafting, creation and implementation of the Child Support Guidelines, a project that had begun with his predecessor, Judge Gladys Kessler.

It is in this section of the oral history that Judge Urbina’s insights and understanding of the jury system, trial strategy and tactics, shine through. He first talks about the personal feelings generated by his work in juvenile court, Chief Judge Moultrie’s leadership in reforming the Court’s processes, and his respect for the Superior Court bench, its work ethic, compassion and excellence. “It was one of the proudest experiences I could possibly have, associated with these people who are very bright, very idealistic.” Judge Urbina continues to reflect candidly on the pulls-and-tugs on judges, from the concern about the impact of rulings in high profile cases, to the knowledge of how a crime victim or family might react to a judge’s following the law on evidence exclusion in their case. In the end, though, “you do the right thing because you do the right thing.” He describes several court proceedings that were particularly poignant for him, including one instance where, at sentencing, the defendant broke down while apologizing to the victim and his family, followed by the victim’s mother embracing the defendant with the words “I forgive you. Don’t let this ruin the rest of your life. I forgive you.”

In 1994, Judge Urbina was nominated and appointed as a District Judge on the U.S. District Court. He recounts the appointment process, the difference between judging and cases in the Superior Court and the District Court, and his involvement in many of the high profile cases at the federal court. This includes the Guantanamo Bay cases, how Chief Judge Hogan and then Chief Judge Lamberth organized the workload for those cases, and his thoughts on a special panel of independent judges who might be the best alternative for handling such a litigation. He discusses the currents of and his observations about the Mike Espy trial in 1996, and others.

Judge Urbina shares his approach to sentencing (“I tried to take a textbook approach to sentencing, which means that you look at the four corners of the person”), and the importance of explaining to the defendant, and the victim or his family, how the judge reached his decision. As with many other judges, he despised the sentencing guidelines while they were mandatory, but used them regularly as a guide once the Supreme Court declared their mandatory nature to be unconstitutional. And then there are his many comments on the importance of jurors, their ability to perceive things that others do not, and the need for lawyers and judges to develop a relationship of trust with the juries. Indeed, as Judge Urbina relates, he often invited jurors from his cases to address his class titled “The American Jury” at George Washington Law School to discuss their experiences.

Among all of this are wonderful, sometimes side-splitting stories about classroom and courthouse proceedings, including the time that, while a federal judge, he reported for duty as a possible juror in Superior Court (before Judge Alprin), and the back and forth between Judge Alprin, the attorneys, and Judge Urbina over his qualifications to be a juror. And, of course, his love of motorcycles.

Judge Urbina retired in 2013 and died in 2024. This is an oral history to be savored by those who love the courts, the jury trial system, and the importance of compassion in our judicial system. You will not be disappointed.