Clarence Cooper

Clarence Cooper (born May 5, 1942) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. Early life and education Cooper was born in Decatur, Georgia. He later moved to the city of Atlanta, where he graduated from David T. Howard High School in 1960. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Clark College in Atlanta, Georgia in 1964. He received a Juris Doctor from Emory University School of Law in 1967. He is a member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity. Cooper received a Master of Public Administration from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1978. He also received a diploma from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in connection with a research proposal he developed. Career He served in the United States Army from 1968 to 1970 reaching the rank of Staff Sergeant. He was decorated with the Bronze Star, a Certificate of Commendation, the National Defense Service Medal, the Army Good Conduct Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, and the Vietnam Campaign Medal. State judicial service He worked as an attorney for the Atlanta Legal Aid Society in 1967. He served as an assistant district attorney of Fulton County in 1968 and from 1970 to 1975. Cooper then served as a judge on the City of Atlanta Municipal Cour from 1975 to 1980. Cooper was the first African-American appointed to a full-time judgeship on the Atlanta Municipal Court and the first African-American ever elected to a county-wide judgeship on the Fulton Superior Court. He was also the first African American assistant district attorney hired to a State Prosecutor's office in Georgia in 1968. Judge Cooper was the presiding Judge in the trial of convicted Atlanta child murderer, Wayne Williams, for serial killings that occurred in 1979 through 1981. He was a judge on the Fulton Superior Court, Georgia from 1980 to 1990. He was a judge on the Georgia Court of Appeals from 1990 to 1994.