Wiley Rutledge
Wiley Blount Rutledge, Jr. (July 20, 1894 – September 10, 1949), was an American jurist, law professor, and academic administrator who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1943 until his death.[1][2] Born in Cloverport, Kentucky, Rutledge pursued higher education at Maryville College in Tennessee before transferring to the University of Wisconsin, where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1914, followed by a law degree from the University of Colorado in 1922.[3][4] His early career included brief private law practice and high school teaching, but he soon shifted to legal academia, teaching at the University of Colorado and Washington University in St. Louis, where he served as dean from 1930 to 1935, before becoming dean of the University of Iowa College of Law in 1935.[3][5] In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, from which he advanced to the Supreme Court in 1943 as the successor to James F. Byrnes.[6] On the Court, Rutledge aligned with the liberal wing of the Roosevelt-appointed justices, consistently advocating for robust federal regulatory authority, civil liberties protections, and sympathy toward criminal defendants, voting in favor of defendants in 80 percent of criminal cases during his tenure.[7][8] His jurisprudence emphasized judicial restraint in deferring to administrative agencies while prioritizing individual rights against government overreach, particularly in dissents critiquing wartime executive actions, such as his notable opposition in In re Yamashita (1946), where he condemned the conviction of a Japanese general under what he viewed as flawed military commission procedures.[9][10] Rutledge's brief six-year service ended prematurely due to a cerebral hemorrhage at age 55, leaving a legacy of principled stands on constitutional limits amid expanding federal power.[1][11]