Wade Hampton McCree, Jr.
(1920-1987)

Wade Hampton McCree, Jr., son of Wade Hampton and Lulu H. McCree, was born in Des Moines, Iowa on July 3, 1920. His father, a pharmacist, owned the first black-owned pharmacy in Iowa. Later, he was one of the first black narcotics inspectors to work for the federal government. That job took the McCree's to Hawaii, Chicago and Boston, where young Wade graduated from Boston Latin School.¹

His academic record was such that he received a scholarship to his parent's alma mater, Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. McCree served as president of the student council and associate editor of the Fisk Herald. He was graduated in 1941 summa cum laude with an A.B. in history and later elected to Phi Beta Kappa.²

McCree enrolled at Harvard Law School but his plans were interrupted by Pearl Harbor. He joined the United States Army and served with the 92nd Infantry Division. He fought in three Italian campaigns in the European Theater of Operations. Before he was mustered out in 1946, he attained the rank of captain and received the bronze star for valor.³

McCree returned to Harvard Law School and received his LL.B. in 1948. After finishing law school, he moved to Detroit, Michigan, and entered the general practice of law with Harold Bledsoe. Governor G. Mennen Williams recognized McCree's talents and appointed him to the Workmen's Compensation Commission of Michigan in 1952.⁴ Two years later he became Judge of the Third Judicial Circuit of Michigan (Wayne County), first by appointment and then by election. He was the first black to win election to that court.⁵

On September 29, 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed McCree to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. After five years President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed him to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit on September 7, 1966. During his tenure on the federal bench, Judge McCree strove to render just decisions protecting individual rights, but he would never bend the law. One of the district court opinions of which Judge McCree was most proud was United States v. Caplan. In Caplan, he ruled that the information obtained from a pen register, which was the basis for the issuance of search warrants, was an interception within the meaning of the law, stating "The government should not be permitted to instigate an investigation that is unlawful any more than it can instigate conduct that is unlawful . . ."⁶ This case broke new ground by finding that the pen register data, where lines were capable of interstate transportation, violated wiretap laws and was totally consistent with Judge McCree's interest in protecting the individual.

In another significant district court case, Judge McCree granted a writ of habeas corpus in the case Evans v. Kropp,⁷ where pertinent information concerning the treating psychiatrist's diagnosis and recommendation on the mental illness of a state prisoner was never transmitted to the sentencing judge by either the prosecutor or the defendant's counsel. He also expanded the concept of effective assistance of counsel holding that the attorney's failure to notify the court of the client's mental condition, deprived defendant of his guaranteed rights under the Fourteen Amendment. Once again, protecting the rights of individuals within the law and the Constitution. In Chovan v. E.I. DuPont de Nemours & Co.,⁸ he wrote authoritatively on the effect of a state long-arm statute on limited personal jurisdiction.

Judge McCree left the bench in 1977 to accept an appointment by President Jimmy Carter to the post of United States Solicitor General. During his tenure as Solicitor General, he appeared before the Supreme Court to argue two cases that have been termed among the most important cases of the decade: the Nixon tapes and papers case and the Allan Bakke case⁹. The Solicitor General is frequently referred to as the tenth member of the Supreme Court, a circumstance consistent with Judge McCree's appointment by that Court (after he left the SG's office) to hear and recommend resolutions of three cases as Special Master, one of which dealt with a controversy involving the Estate of Howard Hughes.¹⁰ Judge McCree served with great distinction for four years, but after President Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, he resigned and became the Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law at the University of Michigan.¹¹ He had also served as an adjunct faculty member at Wayne State University Law School and the University of Detroit Law School; as a member of the Summer Faculty of the university of Indiana Law School and as a member of the Board of Directors of the National Judicial College.

Judge McCree was active in professional and community organizations. He held memberships in the American Bar Association, the National Bar Association, the Detroit Bar Association, the State Bar of Michigan, the American Law Institute, the American Association of Law Schools and was a Fellow of the American Bar Foundation. The following listing will indicate the scope and breath of his affiliations: Director of the American Judicature Society; member of the Institute of Judicial Administration; member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the A.B.A. Journal; member of the A.B.A. Standing Committee on Judicial Selection, Tenure, and Compensation; member of the A.B.A. Long Range Planning Council and Lawyer's Conference Committee on Federal Courts and Judiciary; member of the A.B.A. Commission on Standards of Judicial Administration and Advisory Council on appellate Justice.¹²

He was a trustee, Founder's Society, Detroit; Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit; director, Metropolitan Hospital, Detroit; Detroit Symphony Orchestra; and vice-president and director of the United Foundation, Detroit. He was a member of the Federal Judicial Center Board and the Judicial Conference of the United States, serving on the Committee on Criminal Justice Act, the United States Bicentennial Committee and the Advisory Committee on Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. He also served as chairman of the Judicial Conference Committee on Habeas Corpus. At the time of his death, he was a Trustee of Fisk University and a member of the Visiting Committee of Harvard Law School and Mercer University Law School.¹³

Second only to his dedication to the judicial system was Judge McCree's deep concern and involvement in the educational process. He was a founder and chairman of the Higher Education Opportunities Committee (HEOC) at Wayne State University, which identifies economically deprived and deserving high school students and gives them financial and tutorial assistance to enable them to attend college. He had served as co-chairman of the Michigan United Negro College Fund, on the Board of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and on the Visiting Committee of the Law Schools at Wayne State University, the University of Chicago, Case Western Reserve University and the University of Miami. He had been a member of the law faculty and taught at the Salzburg Seminar of American Studies and as a member of the board of trustees of Saginaw Valley College in Michigan.¹⁴

Judge McCree has received numerous honors throughout his career including membership in Phi Beta Kappa, Order of the Coif (Honorary, Vanderbilt Law School) and LL.D. degrees from Wayne State University, Tuskegee Institute, Detroit College of Law, University of Detroit, Harvard University, Michigan State University, the University of Michigan, Oakland University and Lewis and Clark Law School, Northwestern School of Law. He also received the honorary degree of Doctor of Literature from Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.

On July 29, 1946, McCree married Dores M. McCree and they were the parents of three children: Kathleen (McCree) Lewis, Wade Harper McCree (twin), a Michigan State Judge, and Karen (twin) McCree.¹⁵ Judge McCree died August 30, 1987, after a brief stay at the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.