The Empty Chair: Reflections on an Absent Justice

Authors

Jennifer L. Behrens, Duke Law SchoolFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2020

Keywords

Stanley Matthews, Morrison Waite, Peter Parker, Supreme Court, judges, biography, history

Abstract

This article examines a January 1888 letter to U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Morrison Waite from Associate Justice Stanley Matthews. Justice Matthews requested time away from the notoriously overworked Court’s session in order to attend the funeral of Dr. Peter Parker, renowned medical missionary and diplomat. The piece presents biographical sketches of Justice Matthews and Dr. Parker, and considers the historical context of the potential absence on the late nineteenth-century Court’s operations.

Citation

Jennifer L. Behrens, The Empty Chair: Reflections on an Absent Justice, 2020 Green Bag Almanac & Reader 131-142 (2020)