Ricardo M. Urbina, a trailblazing Latino lawyer who scored victories for civil liberties as an empathetic federal choose and for civil rights as a record-breaking observe star — serving to to gas an epochal protest on the 1968 Olympics — died on Monday in Washington. He was 78.
His dying, in an assisted residing facility, was brought on by problems of Parkinson’s illness, his son, Ian Urbina, stated.
Decide Urbina, the primary Latino appointed to the Superior Court docket of the District of Columbia and america District Court docket in Washington, figured most prominently in circumstances that originated with the federal authorities’s battle in opposition to terrorism and that put him at odds with the administration of President George W. Bush.
In 2007, he prolonged habeas corpus rights to Shawqi Ahmad Omar, a citizen of Jordan and america who was about to be transferred to Iraqi custody to be tried as a terrorist.
In 2008, Decide Urbina ordered the discharge of quite a lot of prisoners being held on the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, together with 17 from the Uyghur Muslim minority in western China. That they had been imprisoned since 2002, however the choose dominated that they didn’t threaten the safety of america.
In 2009, Decide Urbina dismissed the indictment of 5 Blackwater Worldwide safety guards who had pleaded not responsible within the capturing deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Sq. in Baghdad whereas the guards had been below U.S. authorities contract to escort an embassy convoy.
The choose accused State Division legal professionals of a “reckless violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights” by claiming that they might be fired in the event that they refused to be interviewed concerning the bloodbath and that their statements wouldn’t be used in opposition to them in a legal continuing. An appeals courtroom reinstated the fees in opposition to 4 of the guards; they had been convicted in 2014.
In 2010, Decide Urbina upheld the District of Columbia’s strict gun laws, however his ruling was voided by an appeals courtroom, whose opinion was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court docket.
As the primary Latino federal choose within the District of Columbia, Decide Urbina labored tirelessly to “not be the primary and solely,” stated Kenia Seoane Lopez, a Superior Court docket choose in Washington. “He personified dignity, integrity and dedication on the highest ranges”
Ricardo Manuel Urbina was born on Jan. 31, 1946, in Manhattan and was raised in East Harlem after which in Jackson Heights, Queens, the place he moved together with his household when he was 8. His father, Luis, an immigrant from Honduras, was a machinist. His mom, Ramona (Hernandez) Urbina, who was initially from Puerto Rico, was a secretary.
Ricardo was a highschool and school middle-distance observe star. He gained nationwide championships within the 880-yard run at Monsignor McClancy Memorial Excessive Faculty in Queens, from which he graduated in 1963, and as a pupil at Georgetown College in 1966.
In Might of that yr, The New York Instances described his efficiency at a New York Athletic Membership meet in Pelham Manor, N.Y., the place he completed in a single minute and 48.3 seconds, as “distinctive below any circumstances.” (It was disallowed as a meet file, The Instances reported, solely as a result of the beginning gun was fired earlier than any official on the beginning line had blown a whistle to alert the timers.)
Two weeks later, on the N.C.A.A. championships in Bloomington, Ind., he completed in one minute and 47.9 seconds.
Decide Urbina graduated from Georgetown in 1967 with a level in English and Hispanic tradition. “I had began school making an attempt to meet my mother and father’ want that they’ve a physician within the household — however natural chemistry ate me alive,” he recalled in an interview with Columbia College’s Middle for Oral Historical past in 2013.
He was finding out regulation at Georgetown when he was rejected for membership within the New York Athletic Membership, the place he would have been the primary Black member. The membership, which The Instances described in 1967 as “a citadel of white Christianity,” was thought-about the pre-eminent coaching floor for school graduates aspiring to make the U.S. Olympic group.
He was advised solely that the membership “quota” of observe and subject athletes had been met, however in an interview in 1968 with The Hoya, the Georgetown pupil newspaper, Decide Urbina blamed “a 100-year-old historical past of discrimination towards Negroes, Jews and different minorities by the N.Y.A.C.”
Decide Urbina was listed as white on his beginning certificates, however he recognized as Black, as his mom had. He stated on the time that he was much less interested by turning into an emblem of the Black Energy motion than in inspiring younger Puerto Ricans, like those that cheered him at observe meets with chants of “Vaya, Ricardo.”
“I obtained so much from athletics that I couldn’t have gotten at residence or at college,” he advised The Instances in 1967. “I discovered to stay to one thing, think about myself and confidence in others, just like the coach, and to take a look at individuals as equals.”
He missed making the 1968 Olympic group within the trials by lower than a second.
His rejection in October 1967 prompted the Black Panthers to picket the Millrose Video games at Madison Sq. Backyard and triggered a boycott of the Athletic Membership’s 1968 observe meet, additionally on the Backyard. The protest drew the assist of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali in addition to the Black American sprinters Tommie Smith and Lee Evans.
Six months later, in what some seen as a fruits of his problem to the N.Y.A.C., throughout the medal ceremony for the 200-meter dash on the Olympics in Mexico Metropolis, Mr. Smith and the Black American runner John Carlos, in silent protest over the plight of African People, raised black-gloved fists because the U.S. nationwide anthem performed and bowed their heads away from the American flag.
A long time later, Decide Urbina’s grandson, Aidan, would describe the episode in a college historical past undertaking as “one of the vital iconic Black protests in trendy historical past.”
After regulation college, Decide Urbina labored as a public defender, practiced regulation privately and taught at Howard College Regulation Faculty. He was appointed an affiliate choose of the Superior Court docket of the District of Columbia by President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and nominated to the District Court docket in 1994 by President Invoice Clinton. He retired in 2012.
Along with his son, Ian, a former reporter for The Instances and the director of the Outlaw Ocean Undertaking, a human rights and environmental journalism group, Decide Urbina is survived by a daughter, Adrienne Jennifer Urbina; his spouse, Coreen (Saxe) Urbina; two brothers, Louie and Alberto Urbina; and his grandson. His first marriage, to Joanne Elizabeth McCarron, led to divorce.
Decide Urbina was inventive when it got here to sentencing defendants. He required some to put in writing books about their transgressions to assist clarify the impression their actions had on themselves and on others, and he ordered most of them to look earlier than him once more each six months to measure their progress.
He meditated day by day, and discovered the Japanese martial artwork Aikido when he was in his 50s, based on a 2011 profile in The Washington Publish.
“I attempt to see the place my biases and prejudices that day are hiding,” he advised The Publish. “If you happen to don’t discover them, they tend to come back out on the most uncommon of instances.”
His precedence, he stated, was rehabilitation, to return defendants to society. “I don’t have a ardour for punishment,” he stated. “If there’s a manner the courtroom can contribute to the rehabilitation course of, it’s extra probably the particular person will return to the mainstream.”
