Odessa Vincent will be sworn in this Friday afternoon as an Associate Judge in DC's Superior Court. The ceremony will take place in the H. Carl Moultrie I Courthouse. 

WHAT: Investiture of Judge-designate Odessa F. Vincent 

WHERE: Third-floor atrium of the Moultrie Courthouse, 500 Indiana Avenue, NW  

WHEN: Friday, January 25 at 4pm  

WHO: Chief Judge Rufus King III, presiding Judge-designate Odessa F. Vincent  

GUEST SPEAKER: Isiah Leggett, Professor, Howard University Law School and Montgomery County Council Member  

BACKGROUND: Odessa F. Vincent was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, and has lived in Washington, DC and the surrounding jurisdictions since 1975. She attended the University of the District of Columbia, where she received her B.A. degree in Political Science in 1981, and received her juris doctor degree from Howard University in 1984.  

Ms. Vincent began her legal career in 1984 as an attorney-advisor with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she litigated civil and administrative cases. In May 1987, Ms. Vincent was appointed an Assistant United States Attorney in the US Attorney's Office here in the District of Columbia. She remained in that position until May 1995, when she accepted a position with the Drug Enforcement Administration's Office of Chief Counsel, where she served initially as an attorney-advisor, and later as the Chief of the Criminal Law Section. From August 1996 to 1997, Ms. Vincent served as a trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the US Department of Justice, on the National Church Arson Task Force, where she investigated and prosecuted crimes involving the arson of and destruction of religious properties. Ms. Vincent then returned to the DC US Attorney's Office in December 1998, first as Deputy Chief and later Chief of the Narcotics Section. She remained with the US Attorney's Office until her appointment to the bench.