Edwin Ford Hunter, Jr. (February 18, 1911 – February 22, 2002) was the longest-sitting U.S. District Court judge in the nation, having served the Western District of Louisiana for forty-eight years. Hunter was based in Lake Charles in the southwestern portion of the state, from 1954 until his death, four days after his 91st birthday. Hunter was known for many civil rights rulings. A half-century earlier, he had been a one-term member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, having represented represented Caddo Parish in the far northwestern corner of the state from 1948 to 1952.
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Hunter was born to Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Ford Hunter, Sr., in Alexandria, the seat of Rapides Parish, in central Louisiana. He obtained his bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. In 1938, Hunter received his LL.B. degree from George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C. and was immediately admitted to the practice of law. He practiced privately in Springhill in northern Webster Parish from 1938-1941. Then he relocated to Shreveport, the seat of Caddo Parish, for a year.
In 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he entered the U.S. Navy. Hunter earned six Battle Stars while he served on the USS Saratoga and the USS Saint Paul.
In 1945, his World War II service concluded, Hunter resumed his private practice in Shreveport and was elected three years later to the legislature. In 1952, he became executive counsel to the new Democratic governor of Louisiana, Robert Floyd "Bob" Kennon, a native of Minden, the seat of Webster Parish.
On October 3, 1953, however, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom Kennon had supported in the 1952 campaign, named the Democrat Hunter to a recess appointment on the federal court to fill the seat vacated by Gaston L. Porterie. Hunter was thereafter confirmed by the United States Senate within a month of his nomination, on February 9, 1954, and received his commission the following day. He was chief judge from 1973 to 1976, assuming senior status on February 19, 1976 and continuing to serve on the bench in that capacity.
Shortly after being appointed to the federal bench, Hunter ruled for the plaintiff in a case that opened all-white McNeese State University (then "College") in Lake Charles to the first African-American students. McNeese later honored Hunter with the "Edwin F. Hunter, Jr., Professorship in Health and Science."
In 1960, Hunter slapped a contempt of court charge against his old friend, then Louisiana Attorney General Jack P.F. Gremillion, for a comment that Gremillion made in a federal courtroom while Gremillion was opposing the New Orleans public school desegregation case.
Professor Michael G. Wade of Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, researched a case during the time of the civil rights movement in regard to the lack of a predominantly black institution of higher learning in Lafayette Parish. According to Wade, Hunter concluded that six predominantly white state colleges in Louisiana had been geographically located for the convenience of whites, with "the purpose obviously being to make education available to more people and to make it possible for more people to stay at home and go to college at less expense." Yet, Hunter found that the same opportunity had not been provided to black students, in the particular case in Lafayette Parish. Those individuals, he said, had no college to which they could commute daily. Therefore, the court held that the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (then Southwestern State College) must be desegregated.
In 1962, Hunter signed voter registration cards for twenty-six blacks in majority-black East Carroll Parish in far northeastern Louisiana. He was the first federal judge to use the Civil Rights Act of 1960, a measure signed by President Eisenhower, to strike against a "pattern of discrimination" by registering voters himself. At the time, not one black had been allowed to register in East Carroll Parish (parish seat Lake Providence), located in one of the state's most economically deprived areas.
In another landmark legal ruling several years later, James Roach v. Dresser Industries, Hunter classified the Louisiana Acadians, popularly termed "Cajuns", as a national minority group.
In his 89th year, Hunter said that he needed to work to prevent boredom. He carried a large civil workload until the end of his life. He died in Lake Charles, Louisiana. He presided over more admiralty cases than any other judge. The Edwin F. Hunter, Jr. United States Courthouse and Federal Building at 611 Broad Street in Lake Charles, the seat of Calcasieu Parish, is named for Hunter.
In 1999, Hunter was honored as the "Distinguished Jurist" by the Louisiana Bar Foundation. He was a member of Sigma Chi society.
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| Preceded by Benjamin C. Dawkins, Jr., 1953-1973 |
Senior Judge, Western District of Louisiana
Edwin Ford Hunter, Jr. |
Succeeded by Nauman Steele Scott II, 1976-1984]] |