On Oct. 4, 1922, Frank Joseph Battisti, the federal judge who found that Cleveland schools had practiced racial segregation - a landmark decision that led to the busing of students - was born in Youngstown.

As a judge for the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Ohio, Battisti also presided over the acquittal of the eight Ohio National Guardsmen charged with the killing of Kent State University students in 1970 and the deportation of John Demjanjuk, accused of Nazi war crimes.

Battisti received a bachelor's degree from Ohio University in 1947 and a law degree from Harvard University Law School in 1950.

He served as assistant attorney general for Ohio and judge of the Common Pleas Court of Mahoning County before being appointed to the federal court in 1961. He became chief judge in 1969.

He retired in 1994 and died in October of that year.

Rebecca Goodman

E-mail rgoodman@enquirer.com or call 768-8361