Judge Tressa Alioth became the first African American woman to serve on the Fourth Judicial District Court of Nebraska when she was sworn in earlier this month.

Gov. Pete Ricketts appointed Alioth in April 2021 to fill one of the judicial vacancies created by the retirements of Judges Gary Randall and James Gleason. The other vacancy was filled by Todd Engleman, who was also sworn in earlier this month.

“I have to thank Gov. Ricketts just for taking the faith for seeing the dedication and the integrity and just the hard work that I’ve put into being a public servant and to serving the citizens of Douglas County and making this historical appointment,” Alioth said in her remarks after taking her oath.

Before Alioth was sworn in, Douglas County Attorney Don Klein spoke about the parallels between Alioth’s judicial appointment and the appointment 50 years ago of Judge Elizabeth Pittman, who was the first African American woman to become a judge at any level in the state of Nebraska.

“We’ve gone from 1971 to 2021 and today we’re here as a deputy county attorney who is hard-working, has done a tremendous job, has been a tremendous public servant here in Douglas County over the years, is appointed to the bench,” Klein said.

Alioth decided that she wanted to work in public service while in high school. As a sophomore, she visited a prison with her sociology class and was taken aback by the stories of the three inmates who spoke to her class.

“The sentences that they were serving just didn’t sit right, even at that age, and so I thought, ‘how do you change this?’” Alioth said. “How do you, living in North Omaha, being raised in North Omaha, seeing what is more crucial, what may have affected more lives, how do you effectuate change?’ And I decided you have to be a part of the system to do that and decided I wanted to go into law.”

After receiving her J.D. from the Creighton University School of Law, Alioth went straight to work in the county attorney’s office, where she had clerked throughout law school.

“I then came to be a law clerk at the county attorney’s office under Jim Jansen, who hired me actually without an interview,” Alioth said. “He was just kind of like, yep, come on in, you start this day, go up to juvenile court.”

During her 23 years in the Douglas County Attorney’s Office, Alioth worked in the civil, juvenile, domestic violence and felony divisions.

Alioth has been an adjunct professor in the University of Nebraska Omaha’s School of Criminology and Criminal Justice since 2018. She is also a board member of the Nebraska County Attorneys Association, a member of the Nebraska State Bar Association, the National District Attorney’s Association and the Nebraska State Council Interstate Compact for Adult Supervision.

Alioth was sworn in at the Omaha-Douglas County Civic Center on June 18 before a group of family, friends and colleagues, without whom, she said, she wouldn’t have made it this far.

“To all of you I want you all to know that the Tressa that has been shaped and molded by all of you as friends, as colleagues, as the defense bar that have worked together, I am still that Tressa,” Alioth said. “You just got to call me judge.”