Justice Isadore Edward Levine
(Eighty-fifth Justice)

Justice Levine was born March 25, 1897, in Michigan City, Indiana, and died April 5, 1963, in LaPorte, Indiana.

He attended the University of Michigan and received an A.B. in 1920 and a J.D. in 1921. He was admitted to the Indiana bar in 1919 and opened a general law practice in LaPorte. In January 1955, he was appointed by Governor George S. Craig to the Indiana Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by the resignation of Justice Floyd S. Draper.³⁸⁸ Justice Levine had never before held public office. He was appointed amid speculation that he would hold the office briefly and then resign with Senator Frederick Landis, Jr. as a possible replacement.³⁸⁹ In March 1955, newspaper reports continued the speculation that Levine would quit in favor of Landis.³⁹⁰ On April 14, 1955, Governor Craig announced the imminent resignation of Justices Levine and George Henley (another 1955 appointee).³⁹¹ Governor Craig defended the temporary appointment by pointing out that the $13,000 salary level made it difficult to convince attorneys to give up private law practice.³⁹² As was the case with Justice Henley, Levine’s brief “service” was quickly forgotten. In the next judicial elections, held in 1956, newspaper reports indicated that Governor Craig appointed Justices Arterburn and Landis to replace Justices Gilkison and Draper thus overlooking the abbreviated terms of Justices Henley and Levine.³⁹³

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.