Walter T. McCarthy

Judge Walter T. McCarthy chaired the Organizing Committee and served as our first senior warden when St. Peter’s Episcopal Church was founded in 1961.  He also served as senior warden in 1964-65, and remained a pillar of the congregation throughout the formative years of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.  

Walter was born in 1898 and moved to Arlington at a young age. He did not finish high school, but graduated from George Washington University and then the George Washington University Law School in 1922. He was a charter member of the Arlington County Bar Association founded in 1926.  In 1930, Walter became judge of Virginia's 16th Circuit Court, which then encompassed Arlington, Fairfax, and Prince William Counties as well as the City of Alexandria.  Judge McCarthy was the youngest Virginia Circuit Court judge ever appointed at the time, and he remains the longest-serving circuit court judge in Arlington County.

In the 1950s, Judge McCarthy ruled in a major decision that gave Arlington County Board the right to reject zoning applications in order to curb growth. He also ruled on other decisions that formed much of Arlington County's zoning laws.  In 1958, Judge McCarthy ruled that racial segregation at churches, movie theaters and other public places was unconstitutional.  He was the first judge in Arlington -- and one of the first in the southeastern United States -- to appoint a black jury commissioner.  Although Judge McCarthy retired from full time service on the bench in 1972, he continued hearing cases into the 1980s.

Walter McCarthy died in 1985, and his remains are interred in the beautiful Memorial Garden on our parish grounds.  A legendary jurist, the Walter T. McCarthy Law Library in the Arlington County Courthouse is named for him.