A bailiff once provided alcohol to an Idaho jury. How this Supreme Court justice responded and got into office

Editor’s note: This is the first in a series about former Supreme Court judges from eastern Idaho.

IDAHO FALLS – John Morgan and the other members of the Idaho Supreme Court gathered in a Boise courtroom to hear an appeal alleging jurors in a Shoshone County murder trial were drunk.

It was January 12, 1894, and the 62-year-old Republican with ties to Blackfoot was one of three men elected to serve as the Gem State’s first Supreme Court justices. The court only had three judges in those days, its website says, and Morgan had been elected for a six-year term in the fall of 1890.

The case in question was State v. Reed, wherein a Shoshone County man had been tried and convicted of murder. Though the man was found guilty, his attorney had multiple concerns about the circumstances of the trial and filed an appeal. One of those concerns had to do with jurors reportedly consuming alcohol throughout the proceeding. He alleged they were intoxicated before they had agreed on a verdict and that either the judge or the bailiff was providing it “in the amount of one quart each morning.”

He accused the jury of misconduct, and felt his client’s sentence should be reduced as a result.

Morgan and his colleagues addressed this issue in their written response.

“While the permitting of intoxicating liquors to a jury … is strongly disapproved, except in cases of actual necessity (it’s not clear what this means), indulgence to a limited extent under the direction of the judge … is not … deemed reversible error,” Justice Joseph Huston wrote on behalf of the bench. “After the jury had agreed upon the verdict, some beer was furnished by the bailiff. It is not alleged or intimated that any member of the jury was … overcome by liquor.”

Despite the admission alcohol was involved, Idaho State Historian HannaLore Hein tells EastIdahoNews.com the court denied the appeal, saying there were no grounds to reduce the suspect’s sentence in the trial.

Today, there aren’t any specific statutes in Idaho law that address this, but Bingham County Prosecutor Paul Rogers says there are rules that prohibit jurors from being under the influence during a trial. There’s also a vetting process during jury selection that allows officials to weed out those who aren’t mentally or physically sound.

RELATED | Bingham County prosecutor resigning later this month

This is one of many cases Morgan heard during his time on the bench. Though he served as the Gem State’s first chief justice, his law career began many years earlier before he ever set foot in Idaho.

Becoming a lawyer and coming to Idaho

Morgan was born on Nov. 25, 1831 in Hamburg, New York. His family had immigrated to the U.S. from Wales years earlier and some of his ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War.

Morgan grew up on a farm in Connecticut before moving to Illinois in 1843 at age 13. It’s not clear what sparked his interest in a law career, but he went on to pursue a law degree at Lombard University.

“The way legal practice worked in the 1800s — somebody worked as a lawyer and you would go and work and train under him. That was your pathway to gaining a legal education,” Hein explains.

He worked for an attorney named E.A. Paine, a West Point graduate from Ohio who later became a brigadier general for the 9th Illinois Infantry during the Civil War.

The political climate of the day was very divided, and the issue of slavery increased the division between the northern and southern states.

“As (Morgan) is gaining his legal background and education, he’s also preparing for the Civil War. He ended up moving back to New York. He was able to study law at a school in Poughkeepsie and graduated in 1856,” says Hein.

Morgan opened a private practice in Illinois before enlisting in 1862.

After the war, he served in the Illinois Legislature as a member of the House and Senate. He came to Idaho in 1879 when President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him chief justice of the territorial supreme court.

“Because of the way the territorial court system worked, he also was a district court judge for eastern Idaho,” Hein explains. “This made things a little complicated when the Supreme Court heard cases the district court was supposed to decide.”

Morgan was reappointed by President Chester Arthur and remained on the territorial supreme court of Idaho until 1885.

Over the next five years, construction of the railroad led to significant growth in Idaho. Morgan established a private practice in Idaho during this time. There are conflicting reports about whether it was in Boise or Blackfoot. Regardless, Hein says “it seems pretty clear he had interests in both areas and he was maintaining relationships with folks in eastern Idaho.”

Election vs. appointment

Before Idaho became a state in 1890, there was a lot of debate about whether supreme court justices should be appointed or elected. During Idaho’s constitutional convention in 1889, Morgan was heavily involved in making sure the issue was “thought out and discussed at length.”

It’s not clear where Morgan stood on the matter.

Ultimately, delegates voted in favor of elections and it was written into Idaho’s constitution. It was a court made up of three justices initially. An amendment in 1919 changed it to five justices, the court’s website says, which is still in place today.

Morgan, along with Joseph Huston and Isaac Sullivan, were elected in the fall of 1890 on the Republican ticket.

“There was no thought for ensuring there was a political (balance) of justices at the time,” Hein says. “Their election victory was based solely on their alignment with the Republican party.”

Each of them had staggered terms. The length of their terms was decided by drawing numbers out of a hat, says Hein. As the oldest of the three, Morgan drew first and got the longest term of six years. Huston drew the four-year term and Sullivan served two years.

‘Laying the foundation for a judiciary’

Morgan was not re-elected for a second term and stepped down in January 1897. He returned to private practice, and his son, Ralph, later became an attorney in Blackfoot.

Morgan was 79 when he died on Sept. 7, 1910.

As one of Idaho’s first supreme court justices, Hein says Morgan holds an important place in history. For her, the biggest takeaway is the role he played in establishing the rule of law in Idaho’s early years.

“The fact that he accepted a territorial appointment, was reconfirmed by a second president and then elected by the Idaho electorate to the same position speaks to his expertise, his abilities as an attorney and his knowledge of the law. This was really critical at that moment in Idaho history because we were laying the foundation for a judiciary that was about to take on (many legal issues) with a bench of three people,” she says. “Imagine the workload they signed up for when they put their name on that ticket.”