1st Black State Judge in Michigan : Wade McCree Jr.; Served as U.S. Solicitor General

Wade H. McCree Jr., who served as U.S. solicitor general, representing President Jimmy Carter’s Administration before the Supreme Court, has died at age 67. His tenure involved two cases significant to Californians.

McCree, the first black man to sit as a judge on a state court in Michigan, died in Henry Ford Hospital. The cause of death was not disclosed but he reportedly was undergoing treatment for cancer and a heart problem.

McCree also served as a federal district and appeals judge and most recently was Lewis M. Simes Professor of Law at the University of Michigan.

The high court on three occasions had named McCree a special master in litigation.

One case involved a 1982 dispute between California and Texas over the right to tax industrialist Howard Hughes’ multibillion-dollar estate. McCree was credited with helping the states reach a settlement. (California received more than $120 million in inheritance taxes under the agreement that McCree helped forge.)

As solicitor general, McCree was the third-ranking official at the Justice Department and his lawsuits also included the one filed against the University of California at Davis by Alan Bakke, a white man who claimed that his application to medical school was rejected while those of less qualified minority applicants were accepted.

McCree’s efforts allowed Bakke to enroll while upholding the school’s affirmative action policy under certain guidelines.

McCree was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and had a private law practice in Detroit when Gov. G. Mennen Williams named him in 1952 to the State Workmen’s Compensation Board. He became a circuit court judge two years later.

In 1961 President John F. Kennedy named McCree a federal district judge and in 1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson promoted him to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. McCree resigned in March, 1977, to become solicitor general, a post he held until 1981, when he joined the University of Michigan Law School faculty.