The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee will unveil a portrait of retired U.S. District Judge Harry S. Mattice, Jr., during a 3 p.m. Friday ceremony at the Joel W. Solomon Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse.
The unveiling will take place in the third-faloor courtroom, where Mattice presided before retiring on Sept. 30. A reception will follow in the courthouse.
Memphis-based artist Jamie Lee McMahan painted the portrait. McMahan has painted U.S. senators, governors, mayors, judges and university presidents.
His subjects include U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, “Roots” author Alex Haley and Harry Belafonte.
President George W. Bush appointed Mattice to the bench Nov. 18, 2005. Before his appointment to the judiciary, he served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee from Oct. 2001 to Nov. 2005.
In that capacity, Mattice was responsible for representing the United States’ legal interests and for prosecuting federal criminal violations throughout the district’s 41 counties, which extend from Johnson County in northeastern Tennessee to Lincoln County in the middle of the state.
Before assuming office as U. S. attorney, Mattice was a shareholder with Baker Donelson in Chattanooga and before that a partner with Miller & Martin, also in Chattanooga.
He was engaged in the general practice of law, with an emphasis on business investigations and litigation, securities, tax and regulatory law compliance and white-collar criminal defense.
In 1997, at the request of Sen. Fred Thompson, Mattice served as senior counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs’ Special Investigation and conducted nationally televised hearings on alleged illegal and improper activities in connection with the 1996 federal election campaigns.
Source: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee