James Bryan Whitfield (born Wayne County, North Carolina, November 8, 1860 - died Tallahassee, Florida, August 20, 1948) was a Florida lawyer, State Treasurer, Attorney General, and long-time Justice of the Florida Supreme Court.
Born on the family plantation in Wayne County, North Carolina,[1] Whitfield's father Richard A. Whitfield moved the family to Leon County, Florida around 1860[2] to start a cotton plantation. The family later moved to Tallahassee. Whitfield was educated at the West Florida Seminary in Tallahassee and the University of Virginia (bachelor of law, 1886). After service as a county judge and the clerk of the Florida Supreme Court, Whitfield was appointed state treasurer in 1897, serving until 1903.[3][4] Whitfield served as Florida's Attorney General 1903-4[5] before being appointed to the Florida Supreme Court, where he served until resigning in 1943. One of his most significant decisions was a 1908 opinion that prohibited excluding African-Americans from juries.[6]
Whitfield also wrote a Political and Legal History of Florida, published in 1943.[7]
There is a scholarship in Constitutional Law at the University of Florida named in his honor.[8]
Whitfield's father, Richard A. Whitfield, was also an elected county judge in Leon County.[9] Whitfield's grandson Randolph Whitfield, Jr is an ophthalmologist known for his pioneering work tracking blindness in Africa. His granddaughter Clare Whitfield married astronaut Rusty Schweikart.[10]