James T. McDermott

James T. McDermott (September 22, 1926 – June 21, 1992) was a Pennsylvania judge and politician who served on the state's Supreme Court from 1981 until his death in 1992. Before joining the court, he was active in Philadelphia politics as a Republican candidate for Congress in 1958, city council in 1962, and mayor in 1963. He was a trial court judge on the Court of Common Pleas from 1965 to 1981. Early life and family James Thomas McDermott Sr. was born in Philadelphia in 1926, the son of Harry Aloysius McDermott and his wife Helen Genoe McDermott. His maternal grandfather, James Genoe, was a Philadelphia Police captain, a fact later said to have contributed to McDermott's law-and-order approach on the bench. His mother, Helen, was a vaudevillian singer and actress before her marriage and entertained the troops in World War I. His father, a clerk and bartender, died in 1954. McDermott earned a bachelor's degree from Saint Joseph's University and a J.D. from Temple University Law School. He was admitted to the bar in 1951 and practiced in the field of labor law at the firm he co-founded, McDermott, Quinn & Higgins. He also taught classes on legal evidence at St. Joseph's and on commercial law at the American Institute of Banking. In 1954, he married Mary Theresa Bradley; they remained married until her death in 1974 and had six children—five sons and one daughter. Political career McDermott entered the political arena in 1958 when he ran for the Republican nomination for the federal House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 3rd district. He won the primary easily over William M. Phillips, a former city councilman, taking 85% of the vote. In the general election that November, however, McDermott lost to the incumbent Democrat, James A. Byrne, by a 63.5% to 36.5% margin.