Judge Marcia G. Cooke, who spent 18 years as a federal judge in Miami and was the first Black female to serve in that position in the state of Florida, died Friday at the age of 68.
The Miami Herald reported Cooke died in her hometown of Detroit, Michigan with her family. She had returned to the city in recent weeks after struggling for months with inoperable cancer. She was admitted to Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami Beach last summer and underwent surgery after suffering a pulmonary embolism on a trip.
A graduate of Georgetown University and Wayne State University's College of Law, Cooke spent 15 years as an attorney and later a United States magistrate judge in Michigan before moving to Miami in 1992. She served as director of professional development in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida.
She would serve in several roles, including Executive Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, chief inspector general for the Executive Office of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and later assistant attorney for Miami-Dade County.
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Cooke was nominated to the federal bench by former President George W. Bush in November 2003 and confirmed 96-0 by the United States Senate on May 18, 2004.
One of her most high profile cases was of Jose Padilla, who had been designated by the Bush administration as an “enemy combatant” in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the first to be tried in a U.S. civilian court. He was convicted in 2007 and later re-sentenced by Cooke in 2014 to 21 years in prison.
