Adolph Grant Wolf, half a century after his death, continues holding the record as the longest-serving Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico. Appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, he served for thirty-six years until his resignation on November 15, 1940.
Born in Washington, D.C., Wolf obtained a B.A. degree at Johns Hopkins University in 1890. After a brief academic interlude in Berlin, Germany, he obtained his law degree as well as a Masters in Law degree from George Washington University. Admitted to the DC Bar, the district's Court of Appeals, the Maryland Court of Appeals as well as the United States Supreme Court, in 1904 he accepts the President's appointment to the recently created Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.
Adolph Grant Wolf died on November 3, 1947, after winning the admiration of Puerto Rico's legal profession for his accomplishments on the bench.
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Federal jurisdiction refers to the legal scope of the government's powers in the United States of America.
William Rufus Day was an American diplomat and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1903 to 1922. Prior to his service on the Supreme Court, Day served as United States Secretary of State during the administration of President William McKinley. He also served as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the United States Circuit Courts for the Sixth Circuit.
Juan Mari Brás was an advocate for Puerto Rican independence from the United States who founded the Puerto Rican Socialist Party (PSP). On October 25, 2006, he became the first person to receive a Puerto Rican citizenship certificate from the Puerto Rico State Department. His son, Santiago Mari Pesquera, was assassinated by a suspected far-right activist in 1976. In 2009, documents revealed the FBI had known of a plot to assassinate Mari Brás but did not share the information with him.
Federico Degetau y González was a Puerto Rican politician, lawyer, writer, author, and the first Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico to the United States House of Representatives.
Deborah Louise Cook is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, based in Akron, Ohio. She served as a justice of the Ohio Supreme Court from 1995 to 2003.
The United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico is the federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The court is based in San Juan. The main building is the Clemente Ruiz Nazario United States Courthouse located in the Hato Rey district of San Juan. The magistrate judges are located in the adjacent Federico Degetau Federal Building, and several senior district judges hold court at the Jose V. Toledo Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Old San Juan. The old courthouse also houses the U.S. Bankruptcy Court. Most appeals from this court are heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, which is headquartered in Boston but hears appeals at the Old San Juan courthouse for two sessions each year. Patent claims as well as claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act are appealed to the Federal Circuit.
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William Henry Hunt was the governor of Puerto Rico, a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Montana, associate judge of the United States Court of Customs Appeals and a United States circuit judge of the United States Customs Court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and the United States Circuit Courts for the Ninth Circuit.
Roberto Sánchez Ramos is a Judge of the Court of Appeals of Puerto Rico and former Attorney General of Puerto Rico, appointed in 2005 by Governor Aníbal Acevedo Vilá. Before becoming Attorney General, Sanchez Ramos served as Solicitor General of Puerto Rico. He is the son of former Governor of Puerto Rico Roberto Sánchez Vilella. His mother, Jeannette Ramos Buonomo, is a retired judge of the Puerto Rico Court of Appeals, and his grandfather was Ernesto Ramos Antonini, who for many years was the Speaker (President) of Puerto Rico's House of Representatives. Also, his aunt was Ivette Ramos Buonomo, a retired professor at University of Puerto Rico's Law School. He was born while his father Roberto Sánchez Vilella was governor of Puerto Rico.
Félix Lope María Córdova Dávila was a political leader and judge from Puerto Rico who served as Puerto Rico's fourth Resident Commissioner in Congress and later as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.
Pedro Rafael Pierluisi Urrutia is a Puerto Rican politician and lawyer currently serving as governor of Puerto Rico since January 2, 2021. He has previously served as secretary of justice, resident commissioner, acting secretary of state, de facto governor of Puerto Rico and as private attorney for Puerto Rico's fiscal oversight board under the Puerto Rico Oversight, Management, and Economic Stability Act. He is a member of the New Progressive Party and the Democratic Party of the United States.
Ángel Menuel Martín Taboas was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, appointed by Governor Luis A. Ferré in 1971, after having served as Secretary of the Puerto Rico Department of the Treasury, or "Hacienda".
José Conrado Hernández Santiago served as the second chief justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico from 1909 to 1922.
José Severo Quiñones Caro was the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico.
Hiram Torres Rigual was born in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. He completed his bachelor's degree in Political Science and History in 1946 with high honors and in 1949 he obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law. He completed postgraduate studies at Harvard University, where he obtained a master's degree in public law in 1962. After serving as an Internal Revenue agent as well as an aide to Puerto Rico's Treasury Secretary, he studied law at the University of Puerto Rico while he worked summers as a professor of Political Science on the same campus. He clerked with Supreme Court of Puerto Rico Associate Justice Borinquen Marrero upon his law school graduation in 1949 and held other government posts including over 15 years as an aide to Governors Luis Muñoz Marín and Roberto Sánchez Vilella.
Isabel González was a Puerto Rican activist who helped pave the way for Puerto Ricans to be given United States citizenship. As a young unwed pregnant woman, González had her plans to find and marry the father of her unborn child derailed by the United States Treasury Department when she was excluded as an alien "likely to become a public charge" upon her arrival in New York City. González challenged the Government of the United States in the groundbreaking case Gonzales v. Williams. Officially the case was known as Isabella Gonzales, Appellant, v. William Williams, United States Commissioner of Immigration at the Port of New York No. 225, argued December 4, 7, 1903, and decided January 4, 1904. Her case was an appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York, filed February 27, 1903, after also having her writ of habeas corpus dismissed. Her Supreme Court case is the first time that the Court confronted the citizenship status of inhabitants of territories acquired by the United States. González actively pursued the cause of U.S. citizenship for all Puerto Ricans by writing letters published in The New York Times.
Mildred Gail Pabón Charneco is a Puerto Rican judge serving as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico after being appointed to the post on February 4, 2009, by Governor Luis Fortuño. Graduated at the University of Puerto Rico, where he obtained the degree of Bachelor of Science with the highest honors. In 1983 she earned her juris doctor from the University of Puerto Rico School of Law. She filled the vacancy created by the death of Associate Justice Jaime Fuster in 2007. Pabón is the fourth woman to serve on the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico
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