"The only Supreme Court justice ever arrested for murder"

The Pacific Legal Foundation's Timothy Sandefur has posted a superb birthday tribute to the great Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field, a leading champion of economic liberty in the 19th century and the author of a landmark dissent in The Slaughterhouse Cases (1873). As Sandefur writes:

In 1863, needing a western Democrat for the Supreme Court, Abraham Lincoln appointed Stephen Field to the new 10th seat, making him the first Californian on the Supreme Court. Field soon distinguished himself as a defender of economic freedom and a friend to the Chinese immigrants who were so severely persecuted in California at the time. While riding circuit in the state, for instance, Field struck down the San Francisco "queue ordinance." This was a law requiring any person who was thrown in jail to first have his head shaved. Although the government claimed this was a health measure intended to prevent lice infestation, Field recognized that it was really an attempt to allow the cutting off of the Chinese workers' long hair braids, or queues, that they prized for traditional reasons: "we cannot shut our eyes to matters of public notoriety and general cognizance," Field wrote. "When we take our seats on the bench we are not struck with blindness, and forbidden to know as judges what we see as men."

Read the whole thing here, including the story of Field's arrest for the murder of a former chief justice of the California Supreme Court. For Field's impact on the Supreme Court's 14th Amendment and liberty of contract jurisprudence, see my 2005 profile "Unleash the Judges."