Thomas Todd
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Thomas Todd (23 January 1765 – 7 February 1826) was an American attorney and U.S. Supreme Court justice.
Todd was born in King and Queen County, Virginia on January 23, 1765. He was the youngest of five children. Both of his parents died when he was young. He was raised Presbyterian. At the age of sixteen, Todd served in the Revolutionary War for six months and then returned home. He attended Liberty Hall, which is now Washington and Lee University and graduated in 1783. Todd then became a tutor at Liberty Hall in exchange for room and board and instruction in the law. Todd studied surveying before moving to Kentucky in 1783 when his first cousin, Harry Innes, was appointed to the Kentucky district of the Virginia Supreme Court. Todd was admitted to the Kentucky bar in 1786, but he gained positions of influence by becoming a recorder.
Todd served as the clerk at five conventions between 1784 and 1792 where Kentucky was seeking statehood. He served as secretary to the State Legislature when Kentucky was admitted to the Union in 1792. When the Kentucky Court of Appeals, the State's highest court, was created in 1789, Todd became its chief clerk. In 1801, Todd was appointed a Justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, and in 1806 he was elevated to Chief Justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals.
Todd married Elizabeth Harris in 1788 and they were the parents of five children: Elizabeth (Mrs. John Hanna), Ann Maria (Mrs. Edmund Starling), Harry Innes, Charles S., and John Harris. A year after Mrs. Todd's death in 1801, Judge Todd married Lucy (Payne) Washington, the widow of Major George Steptoe Washington, a nephew of President Washington, and the youngest sister of Dolly Madison. Their children were: William J., Madisonia, and James Madison.
He was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1807 by President Thomas Jefferson after Congress raised the number of seats on the court to seven. Todd served as a Supreme Court Justice until his death in Frankfort, Kentucky on February 7, 1826 at the age of 61. Todd was buried in the Innes family cemetery but later exhumed and reinterred in the State Cemetery at Frankfort.
He was labelled the most insignificant U.S. Supreme Court justice by Frank H. Easterbrook in The Most Insignificant Justice: Further Evidence, 50 U. Chi. L. Rev. 481 (1983). , Todd's handful of opinions on the Court mostly concerned land claims. Todd served under Chief Justice John Marshall. Politically, Justice Todd was a Jeffersonian. Although they had different political beliefs, Todd adopted Marshall's views on constitutional construction. Justice Todd did not write a single constitutional opinion. Todd wrote but fourteen opinions--eleven majority, two concurring and one dissenting. Ten of his eleven majority opinions involved disputed land and survey claims.
Todd's first reported opinion was a dissent to the opinion of Chief Justice Marshall in Finley v. Lynn. He concurred in all other opinions written by the Chief Justice. One of the more interesting of these cases was Preston v. Browder, where Todd upheld the right of North Carolina to make land claim restrictions on filings that were made in Indian territory and violated the Treaty of the Long Island of Holston made by the state on July 20, 1777. His opinion in Watts v. Lindsey's Heirs et. al., explained confusing and complicated land title problems which plagued early settlers of Kentucky.
Todd's only Court opinion which did not involve land law was his last. In Riggs v. Taylor, the Justice made the important procedural ruling, now taken for granted, that if it is intended to use an original document as evidence, then the original must be produced. But if the original is in the possession of the other party to the suit, who refuses to produce it, or if the original is lost or destroyed, then secondary evidence will be admitted.
| Preceded by: (none) |
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States May 4, 1807 – February 7, 1826 |
Succeeded by: Robert Trimble |
| The Marshall Court |  |
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|---|---|---|
| 1807–1810: | Wm. Cushing | S. Chase | B. Washington | Wm. Johnson | H.B. Livingston | Th. Todd | |
| 1810–1811: | S. Chase | B. Washington | Wm. Johnson | H.B. Livingston | Th. Todd | |
| 1811–1812: | B. Washington | Wm. Johnson | H.B. Livingston | Th. Todd | G. Duvall | |
| 1812–1823: | B. Washington | Wm. Johnson | H.B. Livingston | Th. Todd | G. Duvall | J. Story | |
| 1823–1826: | B. Washington | Wm. Johnson | Th. Todd | G. Duvall | J. Story | S. Thompson | |
