John Paul, Jr. (December 9, 1883 – February 13, 1964) was a U.S. Representative from Virginia, and later a United States federal judge. He was the son of John Paul, also a federal judge.
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Born in Harrisonburg, Virginia, the younger Paul lived on the family farm in Rockingham County, Virginia and attended private and public schools. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington in 1903, with a degree in civil engineering, and was an instructor in that institution in 1903 and 1904. He received his Juris Doctor from the University of Virginia School of Law in 1906. He was graduated from the law department of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville in 1906. He was admitted to the bar and commenced practice in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 1907, maintaining a private law practice there until 1917. served as member of the Virginia State Senate from 1911 to 1915, and was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia in 1916 and 1918.
Paul entered the United States Army in May 1917 and served throughout the First World War with the Three Hundred and Thirteenth Field Artillery of the One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Field Artillery Brigade, being in the American Expeditionary Forces from May 1918 to May 1919. He again served in the State Senate from 1919 to 1922, and from 1919 to 1923, he was also city attorney of Harrisonburg. In 1920, Paul successfully contested as a Republican the election of Thomas W. Harrison to the Sixty-seventh Congress from Virginia's 7th congressional district, but Harrison presented credentials as a Member-elect and served from March 4, 1921, to December 15, 1922. Paul successfully contested this election and was awarded the seat, but he only served from December 15, 1922, to March 3, 1923. Paul's 1922 bid for reelection, to the Sixty-eighth Congress was unsuccessful, as Harrison regained the seat at the ballot box.
Paul was as special assistant to the Attorney General of the United States, Harry M. Daugherty, in 1923 and 1924, before resuming his private practice from 1924 to 1929. In that year, he became the United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, remaining in that position until 1932.
A delegate to the Republican National Conventions in 1912, 1916, 1920, and 1924, Paul was nominated by President Herbert Hoover on December 15, 1931, to a seat on the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia vacated by Henry C. McDowell. The United States Senate confirmed Paul's nomination on January 11, 1932, and he received his commission on January 14, 1932. When he went to the bench, he was the only judge in the Western District, which ranges from Cumberland Gap to Winchester, Virginia with seven courthouses.
Judge Paul presided over the 50-day trial of the Franklin County moonshine conspiracy, said to be the longest trial in Virginia history to that time.[1]
A second judgeship for the district was added in 1938. After the failed nomination of Floyd H. Roberts, and the brief tenure of Professor Armistead Mason Dobie who went on to the Court of Appeals, the position that was ultimately filled by Judge Alfred D. Barksdale, with whom Paul worked as the only two judges for the District for over 17 years.
To Paul and his colleagues fell the task of implementing the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education in desegregation lawsuits in the Western District of Virginia. Paul sat on the panel that ordered the integration of the graduate schools of the University of Virginia in the Gregory Swanson case,[2] and he ordered the desegregation of the schools in the City of Charlottesville, Grayson County, and Warren County.[3]
Paul served as chief judge from 1948 to 1958, when he took senior status on August 1, 1958. Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Theodore Roosevelt Dalton to replace him. Paul continued in service as a judge on an assigned basis as well as operating his farm in Rockingham County, Virginia. In 1961, Paul donated part of his family's farm to become the Paul State Forest.[4]
Paul died at Ottobine, Virginia, February 13, 1964, and was interred in Woodbine Cemetery, Harrisonburg, Virginia.
| United States House of Representatives | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Thomas W. Harrison |
Member from Virginia's 7th congressional district December 15, 1922 – March 3, 1923 |
Succeeded by Thomas W. Harrison |
| Legal offices | ||
| Preceded by Henry C. McDowell |
Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia January 14, 1932 – August 1, 1958 |
Succeeded by Theodore Roosevelt Dalton |
