Courts in the Classroom
Supreme Court of Indiana
Division of State Court Administration
30 S. Meridian Street, Ste 500
Indianapolis, IN 46204
Dr. Elizabeth R. Osborn
Coordinator for
Public History and
Education Programs
Pho: 317.233.8682
elizabeth.osborn@courts.IN.gov
Sarah Kidwell
Outreach Coordinator
Pho: 317.234.3055
sarah.kidwell@courts.IN.gov
2011 Outstanding Public
History Project Award
from the National Council
on Public History
Justice Biographies
Justice James Lorenzo Worden
(Seventeenth Justice)
Justice Worden was born May 10, 1819, in Sandisfield, Massachusetts, and died June 10, 1884, in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
He received his early education in the Ohio public schools. He began studying law in 1838 and was admitted to the Ohio bar in Lancaster, Ohio, in 1841. He opened his first law office at Tiffin, Ohio, and practiced there until 1844, when he moved to Columbia City, Indiana.560 In 1846, he opened a law office in Fort Wayne where he lived the rest of his life. He became the prosecutor for the 10th Indiana Judicial Circuit in 1851. He was appointed to the 10th Indiana Judicial Circuit Court in 1855, and was later elected for a six-year term.561 He served until 1858, when he was appointed to the Indiana Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by Justice William Stuart's resignation.562 He was re-elected for three subsequent terms. He had served continuously for almost twenty-five years as a Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court when he left the bench on December 1, 1882.563
560. 3 MONKS, supra note 25, at 1431.
561. 3 id.
562. 3 id. at 1432.
563. 3 Id.
Source: Browning, Minde C., Richard Humphrey, and Bruce Kleinschmidt. "Biographical Sketches of Indiana Supreme Court Justices." Indiana Law Review: Vol. 30, No. 1, 1997. View this source in PDF format.
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