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 The Supreme Court of Louisiana. the war with England, until February, 1815, when, as we have already stated, he was ap pointed a judge of the Supreme Court of the State. He sat upon that bench for thirty-one years. While his duties as judge were performed with entire strictness, his labors in adjacent fields of intellectual work were immense. He prepared and published



reports of the Supreme Court of the Terri tory from 1809 to 1812, and in 1827 published a history of Louisiana. When the territorial court came to an end, Judge Martin con tinued his work as reporter by publishing eighteen volumes of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the State. Under his in cessant and protracted work, imperfections of vision increased, and in 1838 he became quite blind. For all practical purposes this blindness was total during the last eight years of his judicial life. Yet he continued to sit on the bench and to discharge the THOMAS duties of his office with a regularity that was surprising. His last reported opinion was delivered in February, 1846, in which it was held that an inspector of elections who has illegally and maliciously prevented one from voting, will be responsible to such per son in damages. In March, 1846, in conse quence of the adoption of a new State Constitution, the court of which he was a member ceased to exist, and he was thus retired from the bench. He died in the month of December following. It would seem that a man who had been profoundly versed in law for sixty years might make

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a will which no one would dispute. Such, however, was not the case with Judge Mar tin. His will was written in 1844, in the olographic form. He bequeathed his estate, amounting to four hundred thousand dollars, to his brother residing in New Orleans. The will was contested by the State on the grounds that it was void for this, that when it was made, Judge Martin was physically incapa ble, on account of blindness, of making an olographic will; that the estate of the deceased (who on this theory died intestate) fell to the heirs domi ciliated out of the United States, and was therefore subject to a tax of ten per cent by the statute of 1842. The court be low gave judgment in favor of the State, but the tribunal where Judge Martin had so long presided held otherwise. In 1839, Judge Bullard having sent in his resignation, the va cancies then existing were filled by the ap SLIDELL. pointment of Messrs. Pierre A. Rost and George Eustis, who some time after re signed. Messrs. George Strawbridge and Alonzo Morphy were appointed their suc cessors, the former resigning not long after. In 1840 the number of the judges was in creased to five, the highest number to which it could be raised. The Court was then composed of their honors Frangois Xavier Martin, Presiding Judge; H. A. Bullard, A. Morphy, Edward Simon, and R. Garland as associates. Subsequently in 1843, considering that