Justice George Shiras, Jr.
Today’s Justice of the Day is: GEORGE SHIRAS, JR. Justice Shiras was born on this day, January 26, in 1832.
Justice Shiras was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. He graduated from Yale College in 1853, and later on attended Yale Law School.
Justice Shiras worked in private practice in Dubuque, Iowa from 1855 to 1858, the year he began working as a private attorney in his home town of Pittsburgh. He achieved prominence as a corporate attorney during his time as a lawyer there, which would last until his appointment to the SCUS (made on the recommendation of his cousin, Secretary of State James G. Blaine).
Justice Shiras was nominated by President Benjamin Harrison on July 19, 1892, to a seat vacated by Justice Joseph P. Bradley. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on July 26, and received his commission that day. Justice Shiras took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on October 10, and served out his entire tenure on the Fuller Court. His service was terminated on February 23, 1903, due to his retirement.
Justice Shiras is not especially well-remembered today, and did not have an especially powerful impact in shaping the SCUS’s jurisprudence. Regrettably, he joined the odious opinion of the Court in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which held that laws codifying racial segregation were not unconstitutional so long as they provided for supposedly ‘equal’ accommodations.