Distinguished Anguillian Jurist Rhys Shelley Hodge has been sworn in as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) for a second 10-year term. Chief Justice Hodge, along with two other justices of the Supreme Court, was sworn in during a ceremony on Thursday March 9 at Government House, Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas.
Chief Justice Hodge was originally sworn into office as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on December 18, 2006, having been nominated by Governor Charles W. Turnbull. He was renominated by Governor Kenneth E. Mapp to a second ten-year term, and was unanimously confirmed by the 31st Legislature on December 20, 2016. Hodge, who is the son of the late Walter G. Hodge, was born in Anguilla, and attended the East End Primary School and The Valley Secondary School, from which he graduated in 1965. Following his graduation from high school, he migrated to St. Thomas, USVI, where he attended the College of the Virgin Islands. In 1968, he transferred to Kansas State University where he received a BSc degree in 1971. Upon his graduation, he returned to St. Thomas where he married Jean Dalmida, a native of St. John, and they have raised four children.
He obtained his legal education at the Rutgers University School of Law where he graduated with a Juris Doctor degree in 1977. There, he excelled, receiving the American Jurisprudence Award for obtaining the highest grade of his class in constitutional law. After graduating law school, Chief Justice Hodge returned to St. Thomas where he served as a law clerk to the Chief Judge of the District Court of the USVI from 1977 to 1979, before opening his own law firm “The Law Offices of Rhys S. Hodge” with which he maintained an active private practice for the next twenty-one years. During his time in private practice he remained active in the Virgin Islands Bar Association serving as President, a member of the Board of Governors, and a number of other functions. In addition to being admitted to practice law in the Virgin Islands, he has been admitted to the bars of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He is an active member of the American Bar Association, the National Bar Association, the American Bar Foundation, the American Judges Association, the American Law Institute, and the Conference of Chief Justices – where he is the seventh most senior member of the 56-member Conference, and chairs its Court Management Committee. Chief Justice Hodge was first sworn in as a judge of the Superior Court on June 23, 2000, where he served until his appointment to the new Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands. He has also been active in community affairs, including serving as President of the V.I. Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
In remarks following his swearing-in, Chief Justice Hodge said that, of the Court’s many accomplishments during its first ten years he is most proud that it earned the confidence of the Judicial Council of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which determined in 2012 that, after only five years of existence, during which high quality case law was produced, appeals of decisions by the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands should go directly to the Supreme Court of the United States. This appellate procedure established that the USVI court’s performance is on par with that of any state.
The 2nd floor ballroom of Government House was filled to capacity for the occasion of the swearing-in of Chief Justice Hodge with officials of all branches of government, employees, family members including his brother Timothy Hodge, and the British Virgin Islands Premier, the Honorable D. Orlando Smith. All Anguillians can be justly proud of the great accomplishments of this distinguished son of the soil.
– Contributed
