Theodore Spearman
January 10, 1947 – January 3, 2012
Theodore “Ted” Ferdinand Spearman Jr., 64, died peacefully January 3, 2012 at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle with his wife and family at his side. He had been hospitalized since December 7 as a result of complications from a brain aneurysm.
Born in Seattle on January 10, 1947, Ted was adopted by Theodore Spearman, Sr. (1896-1984) and Nevada Letitia Jane (Roberts) Spearman (1897-2002) of Yakima. A 1964 Davis High School graduate and Eagle Scout, he attended Yakima Valley College where he met Marie Annette Mullenneix, both 19 years old in 1966. Stanford University offered a track scholarship and Marie, knowing she had found her soul mate, followed Ted and watched him graduate in 1968. They married May 16, 1969 in Palo Alto, California.
His parents’ ardent work for the NAACP guided his career of obstinate advocacy for justice. Ted received his Juris Doctor at the University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor in 1971, just a few months before their daughter Simone Letitia was born. Offered a partnership in a civil rights law firm in Detroit, Ted practiced criminal and civil law and enjoyed teaching as an adjunct professor at Wayne State University Law School. He successfully pursued civil litigation against the Detroit Police Department in multiple police brutality cases.
In 1983 the family moved back to Washington, where Ted represented personal injury and civil rights clients, often joining as co-counsel on difficult cases around the state involving police misconduct. Making lifelong friends with many among Bainbridge Island’s “live-aboard” community, Ted was passionate in his efforts to protect their right to moor in Eagle Harbor.
In 1998, Ted was a finalist for appointment as a judge to the United States District Court, Western Division. He was also appointed by the State Supreme Court to the Capital Counsel Qualification Panel, which oversees the development of attorneys qualified for appointment in death penalty cases. In 2004, he was appointed to the Kitsap County Superior Court by Governor Gary Locke and was twice reelected, unopposed. The Kitsap County community welcomed him as their first African American judge.
Ted’s love of ideas, language and contemplation nearly steered him away from the law and toward graduate studies in philosophy, a lifelong fascination that guided his desire to be vigilant, to be observant and to “be here now.” A self-described student of Dharma, he read voraciously, explored the emotional peaks and troughs of golf, loved music and the natural joys of his Island home.
Above all else, Ted prized his wife and mate of 42 years, and their family: daughter Simone Spearman, son-in-law Jason Weaver, and granddaughter Saja Spearman Weaver, of Guerneville, California. Meditative and thoughtful, persuasive and kind, Ted lived the full life of a warrior poet.
Memorial services will be held Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 1:00 p.m. at the Suquamish Community House, Suquamish, Washington. In lieu of flowers, please consider donations to the Kitsap County Juvenile Youth Fund, the YWCA of Kitsap County’s ALIVE program or the Legal Foundation of Washington.
Please sign the online Guest Book for the family at: www.cookfamilyfuneralhome.com.
TRIBUTE Paid Notice
