This article is about the English-born U.S. jurist and political figure. For the Scottish-born Australian writer, see George Sutherland (author).
George Sutherland (March 25, 1862 – July 18, 1942) was an English-born U.S. jurist and political figure. One of four appointments to the Supreme Court by President Warren G. Harding, he served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court between 1922 and 1938.
Born in Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom, Sutherland immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1863 to join the community of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in Springville, Utah. Sutherland graduated from the University of Michigan Law School, and was admitted to the Utah bar in 1883. He was known for his representation of railroads.
He served as a Congressman from Utah during the 57th Congress (1901 – 1903) and was a U.S. Senator representing Utah from 1905 to 1917. He was a Republican.
Sutherland's parents left the Latter-day Saints church and became Presbyterians while Sutherland was still a child. His political career was probably stunted in Utah as a result of his no longer being a Mormon. Prior to 1985, Utah history books rarely mentioned him.
Sutherland was also President of the American Bar Association from 1916 – 1917.
While Franklin Delano Roosevelt was still Governor of New York, Sutherland wrote a decision upholding the constitutionality of local zoning ordinances, in Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co..
During Franklin Roosevelt's early years in office as president, Justice Sutherland along with James Clark McReynolds, Pierce Butler and Willis Van Devanter, was part of the conservative Four Horsemen, who were instrumental in striking down Roosevelt's New Deal legislation. Important decisions authored by Sutherland include the 1932 case Powell v. Alabama, overturning a conviction in the Scottsboro Boys Case because the defendant, Ozie Powell, was deprived of his right to counsel, and U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp..
In United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, Sutherland authored a decision using his vague definition of the Caucasian race with the unmerited application of the common man test that classified Indians as belonging to the Asian race, despite anthropological assumptions on the contrary. This ruling lead to Thind's being denied the possibility of naturalized citizenship.
Sutherland resigned from the U.S. Supreme Court on January 18, 1938, and died four years later.