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George Sutherland

George Sutherland

Supreme Court of the United States

Born 1862 in Buckinghamshire, England

Died 1942 in Stockbridge, MA

FJC ID: 2316

Career output and lasting influence

Opinions attributed per year · peak 12/year

Supreme Court of the United States · 1922–19421922194019601980200020202026120
opinions

Later decisions citing those opinions, per year · peak 1,426/year

Supreme Court of the United States · 1922–194219221940196019802000202020261.4k0
citing decisions

Supreme Court of the United States · 1922–1942

Both charts share the same year axis. Opinion counts include only opinions in our corpus attributed to this judge so far — a year at zero can mean an attribution gap, not judicial silence. Influence typically outlasts the career: citations keep climbing after the last opinion.

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George Alexander Sutherland (March 25, 1862 – July 18, 1942) was a British-born American jurist and politician who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1922 to 1938. A member of the Republican Party, he also represented Utah in the U.S. Senate from 1905 to 1917 and in the House of Representatives from 1901 to 1903.

Born in Buckinghamshire, England, Sutherland immigrated to the United States with his family as a young child in the 1860s. After attending the University of Michigan Law School, Sutherland established a legal practice in Provo, Utah, and won election to the Utah State Senate. Sutherland won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1900 and to the U.S. Senate in 1904. As a member of Congress, Sutherland supported several progressive policies but generally aligned with the party's conservative wing. He won re-election in 1910 but was defeated in the 1916 election by Democrat William H. King.

Sutherland made up part of the "Four Horsemen", a group of conservative justices that often voted to strike down New Deal legislation. He retired from the Supreme Court in 1938, and was succeeded by Stanley Forman Reed. Sutherland wrote the Court's majority opinion in cases such as Village of Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co., Powell v. Alabama, Carter v. Carter Coal Co., Adkins v. Children's Hospital, Blockburger v. United States, and U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp..

Gender
Male
Race
White

Prior employment

  1. Private practice, Washington, D.C.
    1917–1922
  2. U.S. senator from Utah
    1905–1917
  3. Candidate for U.S. Senate from Utah
    1916
  4. U.S. representative from Utah
    1901–1902
  5. Private practice, Salt Lake City, Utah
    1893–1901
  6. Utah
    State senator · 1897–1901
  7. Private practice, Provo, Utah
    1883–1893

Appointments

  1. Supreme Court of the United States
    1922–1942 · Appointed by Warren G. Harding (Republican)
    Term ended: Death