Donald Burt Yarbrough (born August 5, 1941 in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...

) served as a justice of the

Texas Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) is the supreme court, court of last resort for civil matters (including juvenile delinquency cases, which are categorized as civil under the Texas Family Code) in the U.S. state of Texas. A different court, the ...

until being forced to resign on charges of crimes for which he later spent six years in prison. Yarbrough ran for the Texas Supreme Court in 1976 claiming that God wanted him to run for that office. Yarbrough defeated a well-respected judge,

Charles Barrow Charles Wallace Barrow (22 September 1921 – 25 June 2006) was a former Justice of the Texas Supreme Court and a Dean of Baylor University Law School. Early career Barrow was born in Poteet, Texas and graduated from Baylor Law School in 1 ...

, in the

Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to: *Democratic Party (United States) Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to: Active parties Africa *Botswana Democratic Party *Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea *Gabonese Democratic Party *Demo ...

primary, mainly because most voters confused him with either

Don Yarborough Donald Howard Yarborough (December 15, 1925 – September 23, 2009)Tolson, Mik ''Houston Chronicle'', 2009-09-23, retrieved 2009-09-23 was an American liberal Democratic politician who was among the first in the U.S. South to endorse the ...

(who had run for Governor before) or Senator

Ralph Yarborough Ralph Webster Yarborough (June 8, 1903 – January 27, 1996) was an American politician and lawyer. He was a Texas Democratic politician who served in the United States Senate from 1957 to 1971 and was a leader of the progressive wing of his p ...

. Yarbrough's election to the Supreme Court was in spite of various scandals, such as being indicted for forging an auto registration and lying to a grand jury. Yarbrough resigned from the Texas Supreme Court in July 1977. He was convicted of lying to the grand jury in January 1978 and he fled with his family to

Grenada Grenada ( ; Grenadian Creole French: ) is an island country in the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea at the southern end of the Grenadines island chain. Grenada consists of the island of Grenada itself, two smaller islands, Carriacou and Pe ...

in 1981. Grenada refused to extradite Yarbrough and he attended

St. George's University St. George's University is a private medical school and international university in Grenada, West Indies, offering degrees in medicine, veterinary medicine, public health, the health sciences, nursing, arts and sciences, and business. St. Geo ...

School of Medicine (SGUSOM). However, while attending classes at SGUSOM's campus in

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Saint Vincent and the Grenadines () is an island country in the Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies at the southern end of the eastern border of the Caribbean Sea wh ...

in 1983, he was arrested by U.S. consular officials. Yarbrough was sentenced to six years in federal prison in 1986 for bribery. Yarbrough,

Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Justice that is responsible for the care, custody, and control of incarcerated individuals who have committed federal crimes; that i ...

#36007-079, was released on March 8, 1990.Donald Burt Yarbrough
"

. Retrieved on July 30, 2010. He died on August 12, 2017, in Orlando, Florida.

Sources

Justices of Texas 1836-1986 - Donald Burt Yarbrough
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yarbrough, Don 1941 births Living people Lawyers from Dallas Justices of the Texas Supreme Court Texas Democrats