Cecil Francis Poole (July 25, 1914 – November 12, 1997) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and a United States Attorney for the Northern District of California. He was the first African American to serve as a United States Attorney (outside of the United States Virgin Islands), the first African American to serve as a Judge of the Northern District of California and the second African American to serve as a Judge of the Ninth Circuit.

Cecil F. Poole
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
Born 1914 in Birmingham, AL
Died 1997 in San Francisco, CA
FJC ID: 1909
Career output and lasting influence
Opinions attributed per year · peak 10/year
Later decisions citing those opinions, per year · peak 288/year
California Northern District Court · 1976–1980Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals · 1979–1997
Both charts share the same year axis. Opinion counts include only opinions in our corpus attributed to this judge so far — a year at zero can mean an attribution gap, not judicial silence. Influence typically outlasts the career: citations keep climbing after the last opinion.
- Gender
- Male
- Race
- African American
Prior employment
- Private practice, San Francisco, California1947–1951, 1970–1976
U.S. attorney for the Northern District of California1961–1970- University of California, Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of LawProfessor of law · 1969–1970
- Yale Law SchoolFellow in residence · 1970
- Gov. Edmund G. Brown, CaliforniaSecretary and legal counsel · 1958–1961
- San Francisco, CaliforniaAssistant district attorney and chief superior court deputy · 1951–1958
- Golden State University Law SchoolInstructor · 1952–1958
- Regional Appellate Division, U.S. Office of Price Administration, San Francisco, CaliforniaChief · 1946–1947
U.S. Army first lieutenant1942–1945- Private practice, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania1940–1942
National Labor Relations BoardMember · 1942
Appointments
1979–1997 · Appointed by Jimmy Carter (Democratic)Term ended: Death
1976–1980 · Appointed by Gerald Ford (Republican)Term ended: Appointment to Another Judicial Position
Education
LL.M. · 1939
LL.B. · 1938- University of MichiganA.B. · 1935