Frank J. Battisti - Later Years and Legacy

Later Years and Legacy

During his lifetime, Judge Battisti received many honors for his judicial service. In 1972, he was elected president of the United States Sixth District Judges Association; and the following year, he received an honorary doctor of law degree from St. Francis College, in Loretto, Pennsylvania. In 1974, he was honored with a plaque by B'nai B'rith for his commitment to civil rights. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America named him as the country's outstanding trial judge in 1978. Nevertheless, during the following year, in 1979, U.S. Representative John Ashbrook engaged in an unsuccessful bid to have Judge Battisti impeached.

Judge Battisti stepped down as chief judge of the Northern District of Ohio, on January 15, 1990 (Martin Luther King, Jr. Day). His death, which occurred on October 19, 1994 (Saint Frithuswith Day), received coverage in the regional and national media. Faye Kaufman, Judge Battisti's secretary at the U.S. District Court of Northern Ohio, reported that he died as a result of typhus and Rocky Mountain spotted fever. Upon his passing, his service was officially terminated. Judge Battisti's legacy was praised by Daniel McMullen, former director of the Office on School Monitoring and Community Relations, the federal court's watchdog of the Cleveland schools' desegregation effort. "Battisti believed and stood for something much larger than the minutiae of constitutional doctrine", McMullen said. "He possessed the intellect to understand the sweep of history".

Judge Battisti's remains were interred at Cleveland's Calvary Cemetery.