Stephanie L. Slater is a three-time graduate of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, the undergraduate alma mater of Justice Sanford. At the University of Tennessee, Stephanie was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Tennessee Law Review. A former law clerk for the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee – a judgeship once held by Justice Sanford – she has worked in the state and federal court systems in Tennessee since obtaining her J.D. in 1990.
Shortly after Edward Sanford was confirmed as the Court’s seventy-second Justice in 1923, an Illinois newspaper observed that liberals were “quite as much pleased over” Sanford’s appointment as they were “distressed over that of Pierce Butler,” who had taken a seat on the Court less than a month before. “Liberals,” the paper continued, “in fact…
The nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to be the first Black woman to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court has captured national headlines in recent weeks amid the news of the war in Ukraine. Shortly after World War I ended, Knoxville received some national court-related attention as well when local Judge Edward Terry Sanford was…
I daresay few of my readers recall a Knoxvillian once sat on the Supreme Court of the United States. Judge Edward Terry Sanford served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1923 until his unexpected death in 1930. Sanford had been the judge of the Eastern District of Tennessee, by virtue of appointment by President Theodore Roosevelt.
Can you name Knoxville’s only U.S. Supreme Court justice? Attorney Stephanie Slater is convinced he was a significant jurist whose opinions still have positive influence on many decisions today, including civil-rights cases.
Special thanks to the Tennessee Bar Association for the book review: https://www.tba.org/journal/book-review
