Stanley Forman Reed

Stanley Forman Reed lived from December 31, 1884 to April 2, 1980 and was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1938 to 1957 and, before that, as United States Solicitor General from 1935 to 1938. Born in Mason County, Kentucky, Reed established a legal practice in Maysville, Kentucky and won election to the Kentucky House of Representatives; he attended law school but did not graduate, making him the most recent Supreme Court justice who did not graduate from law school. After serving in the Army during World War I, Reed became a prominent corporate attorney and took positions with the Federal Farm Board and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. He took office as Solicitor General in 1935 and defended the constitutionality of several New Deal policies. After the retirement of Associate Justice George Sutherland, President Franklin D. Roosevelt successfully nominated Reed to the Supreme Court; Reed served until his retirement in 1957, when he was succeeded by Charles Evans Whittaker. Reed wrote the majority opinion in cases such as Smith v. Allwright, Gorin v. United States and Adamson v. California, and authored dissenting opinions including in Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education.