Ricardo M. Urbina, a trailblazing Latino lawyer who scored victories for civil liberties as an empathetic federal judge and for civil rights as a record-breaking track star — helping to fuel an epochal protest at the 1968 Olympics — died on Monday in Washington. He was 79.
His death, in an assisted living facility, was caused by complications of Parkinson’s disease, his son, Ian Urbina, said.
Judge Urbina, the first Latino appointed to the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and the United States District Court in Washington, figured most prominently in cases that originated with the federal government’s war against terrorism and that put him at odds with the administration of President George W.