IT’S UNCOMMON for a New York state judge to give considerable credit to a grandfather who tilled the soil and owned and operated one of the last donkey carts seen on the streets of Barbados.
After all, many justices trace the origin of their burning desire to sit on the bench in one of America’s most litigious jurisdictions to the eloquence of court decisions. Other judges recall the dynamic role played by a Hollywood judge in courtroom dramas.
Not so with Sharon A. Clarke, one of the newest judges elected to the New York State court system in Brooklyn.
“My grandfather, Felton Bourne, who lived in Thornbury Hill in Christ Church, was instrumental in helping me to be where I am today,” Justice Clarke told the Sunday Sun.
Words of advice
“As a child growing up in Barbados, he would place me on his knee and tell me how important I was and that with hard work and determination I could rise to be anything I aspired to be. The love and affection he showed me and his words of advice have stayed with me and inspired me. He was also one of the hardest working individuals I knew. He worked the land and used his donkey cart to transport things.”
The conversations with her grandfather, the guidance of her parents and an aunt in Thornbury Hill, not to mention the teachers at Christ Church Girls’ School which she attended as a child, are all part of the tapestry of her early life in Barbados after she moved to the island from Guyana where she was born to Bajan father, Chesterfield Bourne, and Guyanese mother Eileen Bourne. She came to New York from the Caribbean in 1977 and has been in the city ever since.
Ten-year term
“It was a healthy and comfortable upbringing,” said the judge, who was elected last November with a wide margin to a ten-year term on the civil bench but has since been elevated to act as a Supreme Court justice, a step up the judicial ladder.
“I had a tough election campaign but I was strongly supported by Barbadians, Guyanese, African-Americans and others in Brooklyn who recognised I was suitably qualified to be on the bench. Among them were New York State Senator Kevin Parker and Assemblyman Nick Perry, both senior legislators in the state capital of Albany. I am really looking forward to the next decade on the bench.”
Clarke, the mother of two young adult sons, 18 and 26 years old, takes to the court an extensive legal career that includes stints as a criminal law professor in the City University system, a general counsel of a multi-national corporation, co-chair of an executive panel that developed policies which changed police hiring practices across New York; drafting corporate legal agreements; managing seven law firms that handled thousands of cases; drafting and negotiating business and employment contracts; serving as an expert in matrimonial law; litigating employment law cases and representing the City of New York in tort litigation.
“She was an excellent candidate for the bench,” said Parker.
“I admire her for her confidence,” said Perry, deputy majority leader of New York’s lower chamber.
Clarke, who was recently sworn in by New York State Appeals Court Justice Sylvia Hinds-Radix, a Barbadian, earned a law degree from the City University of New York Law School in 1993 also holds a Master’s in public policy and administration from Harvard University in Massachusetts and a professional certificate in management practices from New York University.
The swearing-in was conducted at St Gabriel’s Episcopal Church, at a predominantly West Indian parish whose rector is the Very Reverend Eddie Alleyne, a Bajan rural dean in Brooklyn. Barbados’ Consul-General, Dr Donna Hunte-Cox addressed the congregation.
“I was raised in a home in which education was always prized,” Clarke said. “That has stayed with me. I trace my interest in being an attorney to the days when I was going to school in Brooklyn. At that time I was about 13 years old and I decided then what I wanted to do in life and I was determined to pursue the dream.”
But why a legal career in the first place?
An instrument
“I see law as an instrument of social change,” she replied. “As a matter of fact, law is the best mechanism to change the mindset of society because people look to the law and to how it is applied by the judges and the court. For me, a guiding hand and a role model is Justice Hinds-Radix. She encouraged me to be impartial, fair and to treat people with respect.”
Interestingly, one of her several siblings also has an interest in the law but from a different perspective. Jacquelyn Bourne is a lieutenant, a public affairs officer in the New York Police Department.
