David Newbern

Last updated

William David Newbern (born May 28, 1937) was a justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court from 1985 to 1998. [1]

Contents

Education, military service, and teaching career

Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, he studied history and law at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He received an undergraduate law degree from UA in 1959 and a juris doctor degree from UA in 1961. [1]

He joined the Judge Advocate General of the United States Army, "mostly at the Pentagon in Washington DC and in Boston, Massachusetts, but also in Germany and South Korea". [1] During this time, he received an LL.M. from the George Washington University Law School, and a master's degree in international relations from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. [1] [2]

Following his military service, he "taught law at UA [and] was acting dean of the law school for a period in 1972–73". [1] [3] Returning to his professorial role, he chaired the faculty appointments committee from 1974 to 1975, where he oversaw the hiring of Bill Clinton to the law school faculty. [1] An amateur musician, Newbern also served as the first administrator of the Ozark Folk Center at Mountain View. [2]

Judicial service

After Clinton was elected governor of the state, Newbern successfully sought appointment to one of the six temporary seats on the newly established intermediate court of appeal. [1] Newbern unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the circuit court for Washington County in 1982, [4] but in 1984 was elected to a vacant seat on the state supreme court. Due to ethical rules prohibiting judicial candidates from campaigning on legal issues, Newbern "took his guitar and sang folk songs at political rallies", and "refused the demand of his runoff opponent that they debate the death penalty, pornography, school consolidation, and other potential controversial issues before the court". [1] [5]

As a justice, Newbern "brought an academic manner to the court's internal proceedings, sometimes bringing a flip chart to the court's weekly conference to lay out the issues in a case". [1] He retired from the court in 1998 to pursue his musical interests, though he occasionally accepted special assignments from the court to review matters. [1]

Personal life

Newbern married Barbara Rigsby, with whom he had a daughter while stationed at Frankfurt, Germany. Newbern and his first wife divorced in 1968. [1]

Newbern then married Carolyn Lewis, with whom he moved to her hometown of Fayetteville, Arkansas, in 1970. [1] They also had one daughter. [1]

He was interviewed in 2012, as part of a project of the Arkansas Supreme Court Historical Society. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vince Foster</span> American lawyer (1945–1993)

Vincent Walker Foster Jr. was an American attorney who served as deputy White House counsel during the first six months of the Clinton administration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washington County, Arkansas</span> County in Arkansas, United States

Washington County is a regional economic, educational, and cultural hub in the Northwest Arkansas region. Created as Arkansas's 17th county on November 30, 1848, Washington County has 13 incorporated municipalities, including Fayetteville, the county seat, and Springdale. The county is also the site of small towns, bedroom communities, and unincorporated places. The county is named for George Washington, the first President of the United States. Located within the Ozark Mountains, the county is roughly divided into two halves: the rolling Springfield Plateau in the more populous north of the county and the steeper, forested Boston Mountains in the much less populated south. It contains three segments of the Ozark National Forest, two state parks, two Wildlife Management Areas, the Garrett Hollow Natural Area, and dozens of city parks. Other historical features such as Civil War battlefields, log cabins, one-room school houses, community centers, and museums describe the history and culture of Washington County. Washington County occupies 951.72 square miles and contained a population of 245,871 people in 89,249 households as of the 2020 Census, ranking it 4th in size and 3rd in population among the state's 75 counties. The economy is largely based on the business/management, education, sales, office/administration, and poultry production industries. Poverty rates, median household income, and unemployment rates best state averages, but lag national trends. Washington County has long had a reputation for education in the state. The University of Arkansas, the largest four-year college in the state, was established in Fayetteville in 1871. A Washington County campus of the Northwest Arkansas Community College was opened in 2019 in Springdale. Today, Washington County contains eight public school districts, including two of the largest districts in the state and two private schools. It is included in the Fayetteville–Springdale–Rogers Metropolitan Statistical Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Powell Clayton</span> American politician (1833–1914)

Powell Foulk Clayton was an American politician, diplomat, and businessman who served as the 9th governor of Arkansas from 1868 to 1871, as a Republican United States Senator for Arkansas from 1871 to 1877 and as United States Ambassador to Mexico from 1897 to 1905.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dale Bumpers</span> American politician (1925–2016)

Dale Leon Bumpers was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 38th Governor of Arkansas (1971–1975) and in the United States Senate (1975–1999). He was a member of the Democratic Party. He was counsel at the Washington office of law firm Arent Fox LLP, where his clients included Riceland Foods and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Paul Hammerschmidt</span> American politician (1922-2015)

John Paul Hammerschmidt was an American politician from the state of Arkansas. A Republican, Hammerschmidt served thirteen terms in the United States House of Representatives for Arkansas's 3rd congressional district, located in the northwestern quadrant of the state. He served from 1967 until his retirement in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Greenberg</span> American lawyer and activist

Jack Greenberg was an American attorney and legal scholar. He was the Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund from 1961 to 1984, succeeding Thurgood Marshall. He was involved in numerous crucial cases, including Brown v. Board of Education, which ended segregation in public schools. In all, he argued 40 civil rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, and won almost all of them.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Harlan Henry</span> American judge (born 1953)

Robert Harlan Henry is a former United States Circuit Judge and politician from Oklahoma, and was the 17th President of Oklahoma City University. He is a member of the Democratic Party. Henry formerly served as the Attorney General of Oklahoma from 1986 to 1991, before resigning early in his second term to become the dean of the Oklahoma City University School of Law, where he remained until 1994. President Bill Clinton appointed Henry as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, a position he held until he resigned in 2010 to return to Oklahoma City University as president. He retired as President of Oklahoma City University in 2018, and has since worked as an attorney specializing in mediation, moot courts, and appellate advocacy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William H. Bowen School of Law</span>

The UA Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law is a public law school, part of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The school is both American Bar Association (ABA) accredited and a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pasco Bowman II</span> American judge (born 1933)

Pasco Middleton Bowman II is an American attorney and jurist serving as a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ray Thornton</span> American judge

Raymond Hoyt Thornton Jr. was an American attorney and politician. He was a Democratic U.S. Representative for Arkansas's 4th congressional district from 1973 to 1979 and the 2nd district from 1991 to 1997. He served as an associate justice on the Arkansas Supreme Court from 1997 to 2004.

Stacy L. Leeds is an American law professor, scholar, and former Supreme Court Justice for the Cherokee Nation. She served as Dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law, from 2011-2018, the first Indigenous woman to lead a law school. She was a candidate for Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 2007. In 2024, she was elected to the American Philosophical Society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Arkansas School of Law</span> School at the University of Arkansas, United States

The University of Arkansas School of Law is the law school of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a state university. It has around 445 students enrolled in its Juris Doctor (J.D.) and Master of Law (LL.M) programs and is home to the nation's first LL.M in agricultural and food law program. The School of Law is one of two law schools in the state of Arkansas; the other is the William H. Bowen School of Law.

Todd Shields is an American educator who is the current chancellor at Arkansas State University. He previously served as a political scientist at the University of Arkansas, where he was Dean of the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.

Paula Jean Casey is an American lawyer who served as United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas (1993–2000).

Susan Webber Wright is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Wright is a former judge on the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. She received national attention when she first dismissed the sexual harassment lawsuit brought by Paula Jones against President Bill Clinton in 1998, and then, in 1999, found Clinton to be in civil contempt of court.

Bradley Dean Jesson was chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court from 1995 to 1996.

Darrell David Hickman was a justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court from 1977 to 1990.

Silas Herbert Hunt was a U.S. veteran of World War II who became the first African American student to enroll in a white Southern university since the Reconstruction era. He enrolled in the University of Arkansas School of Law on Feb. 2, 1948, breaking the color barrier in higher education and starting integration of colleges and universities in the South.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Morris S. Arnold</span> American judge (born 1941)

Morris Sheppard Arnold is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and previously was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "William David Newbern (1937–)". Encyclopedia of Arkansas . Retrieved December 19, 2020.
  2. 1 2 "State supreme court candidate wants to help solve problems", Baxter Bulletin (February 3, 1984), p. 5.
  3. ↑ "U of A Names Acting Law Dean", The Springfield News-Leader (September 5, 1972), p. 19.
  4. ↑ "Election Results", The Madison County Record (May 27, 1982), p. 1.
  5. ↑ "Local lawyers question Sanders, support Newbern", Baxter Bulletin (June 8, 1984), p. 1.
  6. ↑ Dumas, Ernest (December 15, 2012). "Interview with William David Newbern" (PDF). Arkansas Supreme Court Historical Society.
Political offices
Preceded by Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court
1985–1998		Succeeded by
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.