Plummer E. Lott (born ) is a retired American professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

player and a

New York Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the superior court in the Judiciary of New York. It is vested with unlimited civil and criminal jurisdiction, although in many counties outside New York City it acts primarily as a court of civil ju ...

justice. Born in

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

,Judge in cop-slay case got court skills in NBA
/ref> Lott was a and

small forward The small forward (SF), also known as the three, is one of the five Basketball position, positions in a regulation basketball game. Small forwards are typically shorter, quicker, and leaner than Power forward (basketball), power forwards and Cent ...

whose brief

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

career lasted with the

Seattle SuperSonics The Seattle SuperSonics (commonly shortened to Sonics) were an American professional basketball team based in Seattle. The SuperSonics competed in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Division (1967–1970), and ...

from

1967 Events January * January 1 – Canada begins a year-long celebration of the 100th anniversary of Canadian Confederation, Confederation, featuring the Expo 67 World's Fair. * January 6 – Vietnam War: United States Marine Corps and Army of ...

1969 1969 ( MCMLXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1969th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 969th year of the 2nd millennium, the 69th year of the 20th century, and the ...

. The former

Seattle University Seattle University (Seattle U or SU) is a private Jesuit university in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the largest independent university in the Northwestern United States, with over 7,500 students enrolled in undergraduate and grad ...

star was selected by the expansion SuperSonics in the fifth round of the

1967 NBA draft The 1967 NBA draft was the 21st annual draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on May 3 and 4, 1967, before the 1967–68 season. In this draft, 12 NBA teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basketball pla ...

Judicial career

Following his NBA career, Lott attended the

University of Washington School of Law The University of Washington School of Law is the law school of the University of Washington, located on the northwest corner of the main campus in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington. The school is fully accredited by the American Bar Asso ...

, graduating in 1974. After several years working as an attorney in New York City, Lott was appointed in 1991 as a judge of the

New York City Criminal Court The Criminal Court of the City of New York is a court of the Judiciary of New York (state), State Unified Court System in New York City that handles misdemeanors (generally, criminal law, crimes punishable by fine or imprisonment of up to one ye ...

. In 1995, he was elected to the

New York State Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the State of New York is the superior court in the Judiciary of New York. It is vested with unlimited civil and criminal jurisdiction, although in many counties outside New York City it acts primarily as a court of civil ju ...

. From 1996 to early 2009, Lott served in the Criminal Branch of the Supreme Court in

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, presiding primarily over felony cases. One case which he presided over involved

David Hampton David Hampton (April 28, 1964 – July 18, 2003) was an American confidence trick, con artist and robber who became famous in the 1980s after he convinced a group of wealthy Manhattanites to give him money, food, and shelter under the preten ...

, a con man who posed as film legend

Sidney Poitier Sidney Poitier ( ; February 20, 1927 – January 6, 2022) was a Bahamian-American actor, film director, activist, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. Among his ot ...

's son — a case that inspired the play ''

Six Degrees of Separation Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of "friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps. It is al ...

'', and a

1994 The year 1994 was designated as the " International Year of the Family" and the "International Year of Sport and the Olympic Ideal" by the United Nations. In the Line Islands and Phoenix Islands of Kiribati, 1994 had only 364 days, omitti ...

film adaptation A film adaptation transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film. This transfer can involve adapting most details of the source text closely, including characters or plot points, or the original sou ...

of the

same name ''Same Name'' is an American reality television series in which an average person swaps lives with a celebrity of the same first and last name. It premiered on July 24, 2011 on CBS. The series received low ratings, and CBS pulled it after four-ep ...

. In March 2009, New York Governor

David Paterson David Alexander Paterson (born May 20, 1954) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 55th governor of New York, succeeding Eliot Spitzer, who resigned, and serving out nearly three years of Spitzer's term from March 2008 to ...

appointed Lott as a justice of the

Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York is the intermediate appellate court in New York State. The state is geographically divided into four judicial departments of the Appellate Division. The full title of each is, u ...

, Second Department, based in Brooklyn.

Career statistics

NBA

Source

Regular season

{, class="wikitable sortable" style="font-size:95%; text-align:right;" , - ! Year ! Team ! GP ! MPG ! FG% ! FT% ! RPG ! APG ! PPG , - , style="text-align:left";, , style="text-align:left;",

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

, 44 , , 10.9 , , .311 , , .613 , , 2.1 , , .8 , , 2.5 , - , style="text-align:left;", , style="text-align:left;",

, 23 , , 7.0 , , .258 , , .400 , , 1.3 , , .3 , , 1.6 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 67 , , 9.5 , , .294 , , .583 , , 1.8 , , .6 , , 2.2

Notes

External links

NBA stats
@ basketballreference.com 1945 births Living people African-American judges American men's basketball players Basketball players from Mississippi New York Supreme Court justices Seattle Redhawks men's basketball players Seattle SuperSonics draft picks Seattle SuperSonics players Small forwards 21st-century African-American sportsmen 20th-century African-American sportsmen {{NewYork-state-judge-stub