Kings County Criminal Bar Association (KCCBA) on Thursday, April 30, bestowed its “Judge of the Year” award on Caribbean-American Justice Dena Douglas during a gala ceremony at Giando on the Water, on Kent Avenue, in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
Justice Douglas, who was born in Brooklyn, to a Carriacou, Grenadian-born father, was honored during KCCBA’s annual awards dinner, which drew over 300 patrons from across New York’s legal community.
Hon. Dena Douglas, Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, Criminal Term, Kings County, received the Gustin L. Reichbach Judicial Recognition Award.
“To be named ‘Judge of the Year’ by this organization is a distinction I do not take lightly,” Justice Douglas told patrons in her acceptance speech. “I am deeply grateful.”
Justice Douglas — who was raised in Flatbush, Brooklyn; graduated from St. John’s University School of Law in Jamaica, Queens; and was a career prosecutor before ascending to the bench — drew on her roots and her father’s as a touchstone for her life in law.
She said her late dad, David Douglas, migrated to the United States from Carriacou, the larger of Grenada’s two sister isles — the other is Petite Martinique — attended law school at night, became an Assistant District Attorney, and ultimately built a private practice on Court Street, downtown Brooklyn, for over two decades.
Justice Douglas said her dad first encouraged her to pursue a career as a prosecutor.
“My father taught me that a life in law is a life in service,” she said. “Tonight, I accept this honor in his memory, in gratitude to all of you, and in continued commitment to the people of Kings County.”
In speaking candidly about the path she has walked in the legal profession, Justice Douglas said that being a Black woman in the prosecutor’s office was often times “a difficult undertaking.”
She recalled the rooms that she entered, where her presence was unexpected, and the moments when she had to work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously.
“And yet, I stayed, I fought, I built,” she told the awe-struck crowd. “Because I understood that the work mattered and that who was doing the work mattered, too.”
Justice Douglas said the same resolve carried her to the bench and still sustains her today.
Acknowledging that she stands among a small number of judges of color to receive the Reichbach Award, Justice Douglas was clear that the recognition extends beyond herself.
“This recognition is not just mine; it belongs to my community,” she said. “It sends a message that our presence on the bench matters, that our contributions are seen, and that excellence in the service of justice knows no single face.”
Justice Douglas used the opportunity to honor the community, which, she said, has carried her childhood friends from Flatbush, her colleagues in law, her fellow judges, and mentors and sponsors.
But she reserved her most personal words for her two children, Floyd Patterson, Jr. and Noelle Patterson, acknowledging the loss her family sustained early in her judicial career.
Justice Douglas disclosed to Caribbean Life that her husband, Floyd Patterson, died at 50 of brain cancer in 2014. He was Trinidadian-born, of Grenadian parentage.
Justice Douglas said her mother, Doris Douglas, 91, whose parents hailed from Carriacou, currently resides in Brooklyn.
Justice Douglas has served as a New York State Supreme Court Justice in Kings County since 2007.
Prior to assuming a seat on the bench, she held senior positions as an assistant deputy attorney general, a Department of Justice (DOJ) senior trial attorney in counterterrorism, and a bureau chief in the Kings County District Attorney’s Office.
Organizers said the gala ceremony, sold out three weeks in advance, with a waiting list of more than 40, was “a testament to the caliber of those being honored.”
