Indiana Supreme Court Justice Biographies: Justice Richard Kenney Erwin

Indiana Supreme Court
Justice Biographies

Justice Richard Kenney Erwin
(Fifty-sixth Justice)

Justice Erwin was born July 11, 1860, in Union Township, Adams County, Indiana, and died on October 5, 1917, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.²⁰⁸

He was educated in the district school and attended one term at Methodist College, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.²⁰⁹ While studying law, he taught school in Allen and Adams counties.²¹⁰ He was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1886.²¹¹

In 1891, Justice Erwin was elected to the Indiana House of Representatives, and then re-elected in 1893.²¹² From 1889 to 1897, he was county attorney of Adams County, Indiana and then became judge of the 26th Indiana Judicial Circuit from 1901 to 1907.²¹³ He was elected to the Indiana Supreme Court in 1912 by a plurality of 120,330 votes, the largest ever given any Indiana Supreme Court Justice.²¹⁴ He served on the Indiana Supreme Court from January 6, 1913 until his death on October 5, 1917.²¹⁵

208. 1 MONKS, supra note 25, at 290; C.J. Spencer, In Memoriam, 186 INDIANA REPORTS xxxvi, xxxvi (1918) [hereinafter Erwin Memoriam].
209. 1 MONKS, supra note 25, at 290.
210. Erwin Memoriam, supra note 208, at xxxvi.
211. 1 MONKS, supra note 25, at 290.
212. 1 id.
213. 1 id.
214. 1 id.
215. Erwin Memoriam, supra note 208, at xxxvii.

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.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]