Late judge Ted Jones remembered during BBA’s Fifth Annual golf outing

May 11, 2017 By Andy Katz Special to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle

The Brooklyn Bar Association was to New Jersey on Monday for its annual Theodore T. Jones Memorial Golf Outing. Pictured here is BBA president Hon. Frank Seddio with Mark I. Horowitz. Photos by Andy Katz.

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Members of the Brooklyn Bar Association (BBA) doffed their pinstripes for golf cleats to participate in the fifth annual Honorable Theodore T. Jones Jr. Memorial Golf Outing at the Colonia Country Club in Colonia, New Jersey.

Jones, who was a helicopter pilot during the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1969, died unexpectedly in 2012 after a distinguished career that saw him rise to New York state’s highest court prior to his death.

“He was a good man and a great judge,” BBA President Frank Seddio told the audience. “But what I liked about him the most is that he never forgot where he came from … Brooklyn was always in his heart, and he loved it.”

Every year for the past five years, the BBA leaves Brooklyn and heads to Jersey to play a round at Colonia, the judge’s favorite course. The memorial tournament helps the BBA Foundation to raise money which it uses for scholarships for Brooklyn Law School students.

Jones, a graduate of Hampton University and St. John’s University, started his legal career with the Legal Aid Society before he moved to private practice in Brooklyn Heights. In 1989, he was elected to the Kings County Supreme Court where he eventually was named administrative judge for the civil term. In 2007, he was appointed by Gov. Eliot Spitzer to the New York State Court of Appeals.

After his appointment to the Court of Appeals, Jones co-chaired the Justice Task Force, studying the causes and effects of wrongful convictions. Task Force recommendations included enlarging the New York state DNA database, making videotaping custodial interrogations, allowing greater access to forensic case materials, improving discovery reform and performing line up identifications supervised by a detective who does not know which individual is the suspect.

One of Jones’ most prominent cases involved the 2005 New York City transit strike, during which he fined Transit Workers Local 100 $1 million per day for defying his injunction against public employees striking and jailed local leader Roger Touissant for contempt of court.

The Metropolitan Black Bar Association sponsors the Hon. Theodore T. Jones Trial Advocacy Workshop to train attorneys in courtroom methods such as jury selection, direct and cross-examinations and summations.