Justice George Washington Henley
(Eighty-sixth Justice)

Justice Henley was born May 13, 1890 in Washington, D.C., and died February 19, 1965 in Bloomington, Indiana.³³⁵

He attended Indiana University and received an A.B. in 1913 and an LL.B in 1914. He was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1914 and represented a variety of corporate clients in his private practice. He was an Indiana State Representative from 1937 to 1947.³³⁶ On March 15, 1955, this prominent Republican was appointed by Governor George S. Craig to the Indiana Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the death of Justice Gilkison.³³⁷ From the start, it was apparent that Justice Henley’s appointment was designed to be temporary. Immediately after the announcement of his appointment, Henley told the press that he did not want the appointment, but he only wanted the prestige of having served.³³⁸ On April 14, 1955, Governor Craig announced the imminent resignation of Justices Henley and Levine (another 1955 appointee). Justice Henley was replaced by Justice Arterburn. Justice Arterburn was one of the candidates at the time of Justice Henley’s appointment.³³⁹ The Governor defended this temporary appointment by pointing out that the $13,000 salary level made it difficult to convince attorneys to give up private law practice.³⁴⁰ As it turned out, George Henley’s moment of glory was fleeting. Newspaper reports covering the 1956 judicial elections indicated that Governor Craig appointed Justices Arterburn and Landis to replace Justices Gilkison and Draper, relegating Henley to immediate obscurity.³⁴¹

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.