Indiana Supreme Court
Justice Biographies
 
Justice Bobbitt

Justice Archie Newton Bobbitt
(Eighty-first Justice)

Justice Bobbitt was born on September 3, 1895, in Eckerty, Indiana, and died January 24, 1978, in Indianapolis.<sup>61</sup> He attended Central Normal College at Danville and received an LL.B. from the Benjamin Harrison Law School in 1927.62 Bobbitt began his professional career as a school teacher and principal.63 He was elected Crawford County Clerk in 1918, but resigned to join the Navy and to serve in World War I.64 He later served as the Crawford County Auditor from 1921 to 1925 and as a gasoline tax collector from 1925 to 1929.65 Bobbitt was elected to the post of State Auditor where he uncovered a gasoline bootlegging scheme and recovered evaded taxes.66 In 1930, he returned to private practice, but returned to public office as an Indianapolis city attorney from 1943 to 1948, serving as the chief city attorney from 1945 to 1948.67

Bobbitt was elected to serve on the Indiana Supreme Court and assumed office on January 1, 1951.68 Because of court rules that rotated the chief justice position, he became chief justice the day he took his seat on the court.69 He served on the court until he was defeated for re-election in 1963, by Justice Walter Myers, Jr.70 He then returned to his former firm, Ruckelhaus, Bobbitt & O’Connor.71

61. In Memoriam, 265 INDIANA REPORTS xxxvii, xxxvii (1978) [hereinafter Bobbitt Memoriam].
62. WHO’S WHO IN THE MIDWEST 91 (Marquis, 8th ed. 1954).
63. Bobbitt Named City Attorney, INDIANAPOLIS STAR, Dec. 6, 1942, at 1, reprinted in 24 INDIANA BIOGRAPHY SERIES, supra note 2, at 61.
64. Bobbitt Memoriam, supra note 61, at xxxvii.
65. WHO’S WHO IN THE MIDWEST, supra note 62, at 91.
66. INDIANA TODAY: A WORK FOR NEWSPAPER AND LIBRARY REFERENCE 269, 414 (C. Walter McCarty et al. eds., 1942).
67. Bobbitt Memoriam, supra note 61, at xxxvii.
68. Id.
69. Id. at xxxvii-xxxviii.
70. Arch Bobbitt Was Supreme Court Justice, INDIANAPOLIS NEWS, Jan. 25, 1978, at C3, reprinted in 86 INDIANA BIOGRAPHY SERIES, supra note 2, at 68.
71. Bobbitt Memoriam, supra note 61, at xxxviii.

Source: Browning, Minde C., Richard Humphrey, and Bruce Kleinschmidt. "Biographical Sketches of Indiana Supreme Court Justices." Indiana Law Review: Vol. 30, No. 1, 1997. View this source in PDF format.
 
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