James E. Bolin

James Edwin Bolin, Sr. (August 26, 1914 – March 25, 2002,^[1]) was an American jurist and politician who served as a judge of the Louisiana Second Circuit Court of Appeal and Louisiana Supreme Court as well as a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in the northwestern part of his state.

In 1975, U.S. Representative Joseph David "Joe D." Waggonner, Jr., of Plain Dealing in Bossier Parish, urged then U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, Jr., to nominate Judge Bolin to the United States Supreme Court. Waggonner said that his fellow Louisianan exhibited the "highest degree of judicial excellence." Ford, however, tapped Chicago jurist John Paul Stevens for the seat vacated by William O. Douglas.^[2]

Bolin was one of ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. E.H. Bolin in the village of Doyline in south Webster Parish. E.H. Bolin was a member of the Webster Parish School Board and the subject of a biographical sketch in North Louisiana History.^[3] Bolin attended school in Doyline and later transferred to Minden, where he graduated in 1931 from Minden High School as the class president. His name was misspelled "Bolen" on the graduation program.^[4] Bolin then procured his undergraduate degree in 1935 from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. He obtained his legal degree from the LSU Law Center in 1937 and maintained a private practice in Minden from 1937–1942 and again from 1946-1952.

From 1942-1946, while still a state representative for two years remaining in his term, Bolin served in the European Theatre of World War II, including England, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Germany. He received the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart, the French Croix de Guerre, the Combat Infantryman Badge, and the European Theater of Operations Ribbon, with four battle stars. After the war, he served with the prosecution team at the historic war crime trials at Nuremberg, Germany.^[5][6] Bolin did not seek reelection to the Louisiana House and was succeeded by C.W. Thompson of Doyline, then the president of the Webster Parish School Board. Thompson ran unopposed in 1944 for Bolin's seat.

From December 14, 1948, to December 31, 1952, Bolin served as district attorney for Webster and Bossier parishes.^[7] In the DA race, Bolin defeated Bossier Parish attorney and later state representative Ford E. Stinson, 4,474 to 2,561.^[8] Bolin was known for the prosecution of gambling and racketeering.^[9] In September 1952, Bolin was elected to the 26th Judicial District Court bench and reelected without opposition in 1954. In 1954, Bolin sentenced Minden Mayor John T. David to 120 days on the Webster Parish Penal Farm for two bootlegging misdemeanors. The convictions were upheld by the Louisiana Supreme Court.^[10] Bolin left the district judgeship in 1960, when he was subsequently elected to a new seat on the 20-parish Second Circuit Court of Appeal, where he served until his retirement in 1978.^[6]

His younger son, Bruce Martin Bolin (born 1950), also of Minden, served in the same Louisiana House seat which Bolin had previously held. Bruce Bolin was a representative from 1978, when he won a special election to succeed the retiring R. Harmon Drew, Sr., until 1990, when he resigned from the House to begin his tenure in the same district court judgeship previously held by his father. Bolin's older son, James E. Bolin, Jr. (born September 10, 1941), is a practicing attorney in Shreveport.^[11]

Bolin opposed antiwar demonstrators at the height of the Vietnam War. In an address before a civic group entitled "The Spirit of Rebellion", the judge decried the breakdown in law and order across the nation stemming in part from discontent over the controversial war.^[12]

In 1937, Bolin wed his 1931 Minden High School classmate, the former Mary Eloise Martin (October 30, 1913 — September 20, 2007).^[1] She was a former high school English teacher and a 1935 graduate of Louisiana Tech University in Ruston. The Bolins also had two daughters, Beth Bolin Falk and Becky Bolin Maupin. Bolin died in an assisted living facility in Shreveport.^[13]

See also

• H. Welborn Ayres, judicial colleague

References