Charlotte M. Cooksey
MSA SC 3520-11899
Biography
Charlotte M. Cooksey was born in Baltimore on October 30, 1947. She attended Louise S. McGehee School, received her bachelor's degree from Newcomb College of Tulane University in 1968, and her J.D. from Loyola University School of Law in 1971. She also attended the Institute of Juvenile Justice, University of Cambridge in 1980; the National College of Juvenile and Family Court Judges in 1980; and the National College of Judges in 1985. She was admitted to the Maryland bar in 1976.1
Judge Cooksey began her legal career as a VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) attorney for the New Orleans Legal Assistance Corporation, a job she held from 1971 to 1972. She was a staff attorney for the Legal Aid Bureau from 1972 to 1974, establishing a child representation program for non-delinquent children that has grown to be a statewide initiative. She served as a trial attorney for the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice from 1974 to 1975. From 1975 to 1979, she was managing attorney of the Child Advocacy Project. She served as Master in Chancery, Division of Juvenile Causes in the Baltimore City Circuit Court from 1979 to 1983. In 1983, Cooksey became an associate judge in the District Court of Maryland, District 1, Baltimore City, a position she holds today.2
In 1997, Judge Cooksey participated in an effort to alleviate housing court problems in Baltimore City. During this year, city housing commissioner Daniel P. Henson III proposed the addition of two judgeships in Baltimore devoted strictly to housing cases, as well as the creation of a separate housing court. As a compromise, Maryland Chief Judge Robert M. Bell assigned Judge Cooksey to hear housing cases full-time for a six-month trial period.3
In 1998, Judge Cooksey developed groundbreaking truancy prevention program in Baltimore. This program began when Baltimore police “identified juvenile crime and delinquent acts as a major cause of social disorder in the Southeastern police district.”4 These problems occurred concurrently with “epidemic truancy” in the district’s schools.5 Truancy was particularly rampant at Canton Middle School, a racially-mixed school with a primarily working-class student body, where an average of three out of every ten students were absent each day.6 Police viewed middle school as a crucial age for intervention in truancy, because “children make formative life decisions at the middle-school stage, as opposed to during later high-school years.”7
Baltimore police teamed up with the administration of Canton Middle School to explore possible solutions to the truancy problem. In examining the issue, they noticed that parents of chronic truants were rarely penalized, despite a law requiring parents to ensure that all children age 16 or younger attend school each day.8 With this in mind, the police and the school administration designed a “strategy of progressive interventions” to address chronic truancy, bringing together families, school administration, social services, and the justice system.9 Judge Cooksey became a part of the project in April, 1998.10
The first stage of the program took place during the final semester of the 1997-98 school year. At this time, Canton Middle School administrators prepared a list of the 50 most truant sixth and seventh graders in the school. The parents of these students received a letter, delivered by a uniformed officer, informing them of a mandatory meeting with the team to discuss their child's school attendance. Forty-five of the 50 families receiving letters attended the meeting, where they were informed that their children were considered chronic truants, placing them in jeopardy of prosecution. The parents were advised to seek any necessary assistance from the team at that time.11
By the following fall, more than half the children targeted at the first meeting showed “dramatically improved” attendance.12 The truancy prevention team summoned the families of the 22 children still demonstrating chronic truancy to Judge Cooksey’s courtroom. At this time, Judge Cooksey warned them “that they would be charged as defendants if their children did not attend school.”13 The students also received in-home visits from a truancy abatement officer and had their profiles placed in the district police database.14
By spring 1999, 10 of the 22 children still exhibited chronic truancy. The families of these children were summoned to court once more, beginning in April 1999. Eventually, all 10 families were found guilty of “failing to send a child to school,” with sentences ranging from probation and community service to weekend incarceration.15 The relatively unprecedented nature of these prosecutions garnered them local and national media attention. Indeed, the entire truancy prevention program is chronicled in The Baltimore Sun and a number of Associated Press articles.
The truancy prevention program at Canton Middle School proved highly successful. By May 1998, the attendance rate at Canton Middle School rose to 92%. By 1999, Canton Middle School had the highest attendance rate of any Baltimore school.16 Improvements in attendance at Canton coincided with a dramatic drop in the daytime crime rate of the surrounding neighborhood. Since the program began, daytime crime in this neighborhood has dropped 26%, compared to 13% districtwide.17 The ongoing project was a finalist for the 1999 Herman Goldstein Award for Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing, given by the National Institute of Justice. The project was presented at the 11th International Conference on Problem-Oriented Policing, held December 2-5, 2000 in San Diego, California.18
Judge Cooksey has been involved in many other community service projects. She worked in the Diversion and Community Service Program for Baltimore City and participated in the development of the Homeless Persons Representation Project. She coordinates and presents training for judges, mental health professionals, probation agents, social workers, and attorneys on issues such as child advocacy, mental health, substance abuse, housing law, alternatives to incarceration and judicial ethics.
Judge Cooksey is involved in a number of professional organizations. She has participated in the Maryland Judicial Conference in a variety of ways including as a member of the Executive Committee from 1992 to 1996. In 1993, she served as vice chair of this committee, and in 1994, she served as chair. She has also served on the Mental Health, Alcoholism and Addiction Committee and the Judicial Ethics Subcommittee. Judge Cooksey belongs to the American, Maryland State, Louisiana, District of Columbia, Baltimore City and Women’s Bar Associations. She is also a member of the Women’s Law Center, the National Association of Women Judges, the P.L. 99-660 Planning Council of Maryland Advisory Committee on Mental Hygiene, and the Trial Table Law Club.19
Judge Cooksey retired from the bench on April 22, 2008. She was inducted into the Maryland Women's Hall of Fame in 2023.
Notes
1. MD Manual Online, http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/mdmanual/32dc/html/msa11899.html.
2. ibid.
3. Ivan Penn. “Judge assigned full time to
deal with housing issues; Experiment in Baltimore will last for sex months,”
The
Baltimore Sun, 21 February 1997: 2B.
4. The National Institute of Justice, Office
of Community Oriented Policing Services, and Police Executive Research
Forum. Excellence in Problem-Oriented Policing: The 1999 Herman Goldstein
Award Winners. August, 2000. http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles1/nij/182731.txt.
5. ibid.
6. ibid.
7. ibid.
8. ibid.
9. ibid.
10. ibid.
11. ibid.
12. ibid.
13. ibid.
14. ibid.
15. ibid.
16. ibid.
17. ibid.
18. ibid.
19. Maryland Manual Online, http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/mdmanual/32dc/html/msa11899.html.
Biography written by 2001 summer intern Alicia
Brooks.
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