George Sutherland

About the George Sutherland

George Alexander Sutherlandwas an English-born American jurist and politician. He served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court between 1922 and 1938. As a member of the Republican Party, he also represented Utah in both houses of Congress.

Born in Buckinghamshire, England, Sutherland and his family moved to the Utah Territory 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 United States House of Representatives in 1900 and to the United States Senate in 1905. In Congress, Sutherland supported several progressive policies but generally aligned with the party’s conservative wing. He won re-election in 1911 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, and U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp..