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WHEREAS, Judge Walter R. Little, one of the hardest working judges to ever serve the citizens of Pennsylvania, will be honored at the 2019 Spirit of King Awards on January 10 at the Kingsley Association; and,
WHEREAS, born in 1943 as the youngest in a family with 12 children, Judge Little grew up in the Hill District, attended St. Richard’s grade School, and graduated from Oakland’s Central Catholic High School in 1961; and,
WHEREAS, Judge Little served in the US Army for a number of years before enrolling at the Community College of Allegheny County, where he went on to attend the University of Pittsburgh to receive a political science and a law degree; and,
WHEREAS, after college, Judge Little worked as a Deputy Attorney General for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a trial attorney in the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office, a law clerk for both the Honorable I. Martin Wekselman and the Honorable Livingston Johnson, and he was also employed by Neighborhood Legal Services, the Pennsylvania Bureau of Consumer Affairs, and as a partners at a law firm with Attorney Clifford Cooper and future Federal Court Judge Gary Lancaster; and,
WHEREAS, in 1979, then Mayor Richard Caligiuri appointed Walter Little to City Magistrate, a role he served until being elected to the Allegheny County Court of Common Please Criminal Division in 1985; and,
WHEREAS, during his time on the bench, Judge Little earned a reputation as a no nonsense jurist who mixed his vast legal knowledge with a common street sense; and,
WHEREAS, Judge Little sat on a number of boards and held memberships with numerous professional and civic organizations throughout his career, including the Pittsburgh Chapter of the NAACP, Guardians of Greater Pittsburgh Inc., Sickle Cell Society, Auberle, Children of Love Theatre, Pittsburgh Community Services, National Association for the Study of Afro-American History, Smith Watkins Veterans Post No. 2, Allegheny County Prison Board and the Pennsylvania Bar Association; and,
WHEREAS, Judge Walter R. Little passed away in 2006 at the age of 62, and was survived by his wife Elizabeth, their two daughters Karren Denis and Lisa Lonnette, and grandson Diontay Walter;
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NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Council of the City of Pittsburgh does hereby declare January 8, 2019 to be “Judge Walter R. Little Day” in the City of Pittsburgh.