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 the Louisiana Supreme Court. He was a Democratic member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from Minden, the seat of Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana.

Background

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.^[2] Bolin attended school in Doyline and later transferred to Minden, where he graduated as the class president in 1931 from Minden High School. His name was misspelled "Bolen" on the graduation program.^[3] 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 to 1942 and again from 1946 to 1952. For a time in the late 1980s, Bolin practiced law in Minden -- estates, divorces, and automobile accident claims, primarily -- with his younger son, Bruce M. Bolin, who later moved to Bossier City.^[4]

From 1942 to 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]

In 1937, Bolin wed his 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 had two daughters, Beth Bolin Falk and Becky Bolin Maupin, and two lawyer sons, James E. Bolin, Jr. (born September 10, 1941) of Shreveport^[7] and Bruce Bolin.^[8]

Political career

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.^[9] In the DA race, Bolin defeated Bossier Parish attorney and later state representative Ford E. Stinson, 4,474 to 2,561.^[10] Bolin was known for the prosecution of gambling and racketeering.^[11] 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.^[12] 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]

On May 12, 1964, Judge Bolin was invited to Baton Rouge to administer the oath of office to incoming Governor John McKeithen; C. H. "Sammy" Downs, a former state senator from Rapides Parish and an aide and advisor to McKeithen, was the master of ceremonies for the festivities.^[13]

His younger son, Bruce Bolin, 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.

Judge 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.^[14]

Honors

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.^[15]

In 1986, Bolin was honored by the Louisiana House for his service more than four decades earlier. One of his House colleagues, Bill Dodd, a former lieutenant governor and state superintendent of education, praised the judge, accordingly:

[Judge Bolin as a legislator] sponsored and supported legislation for civil service, public bid laws, voting machines, creation of a wildlife and fisheries department, an independent forestry service, dedication of severance taxes to public schools, and the de-politicalization of the LSU Board of Supervisors.^[16]

Bolin died in 2002 at the age of eighty-seven in an assisted living facility in Shreveport.

Bolin is honored through the naming of Bolin Hall at the Louisiana Army National Guard installation at Camp Minden, formerly part of the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant.^[17]

See also

• H. Welborn Ayres, judicial colleague

References