Hiram Torres Rigual (July 16, 1922 – December 3, 2006) was born in

Mayagüez, Puerto Rico Mayagüez (, ) is a city and the eighth-largest municipality in Puerto Rico. It was founded as Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria de Mayagüez, and is also known as ''La Sultana del Oeste'' (The Sultaness of the West), ''Ciudad de las Aguas Pura ...

. After serving as an Internal Revenue agent as well as an aide to

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

's Treasury Secretary, he studied law at the

University of Puerto Rico The University of Puerto Rico ( es, Universidad de Puerto Rico, UPR) is the main public university system in the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. It is a government-owned corporation with 11 campuses and approximately 58,000 students and 5,3 ...

while he worked summers as a professor of Political Science on the same campus. He clerked with

Supreme Court of Puerto Rico The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico ( es, Tribunal Supremo de Puerto Rico) is the highest court of Puerto Rico, having judicial authority to interpret and decide questions of Puerto Rican law. The Court is analogous to one of the state supreme cou ...

Associate Justice Borinquen Marrero upon his law school graduation in 1949 and held other government posts including over 15 years as an aide to Governors

Luis Muñoz Marín José Luis Alberto Muñoz Marín (February 18, 1898April 30, 1980) was a Puerto Rican journalist, politician, statesman and was the first elected governor of Puerto Rico, regarded as the "Architect of the Puerto Rico Commonwealth." In 1948 he ...

and

Roberto Sánchez Vilella Roberto Sánchez Vilella (19 February 1913 – 24 March 1997) was the governor of Puerto Rico from 1965 to 1969. Sánchez Vilella successfully ran for governor in the 1964 elections for the ''Popular Democratic Party of Puerto Rico, Partido Po ...

and obtained a Masters in Public Law at

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (Harvard Law or HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest continuously operating law school in the United States. Each class ...

. Sánchez Vilella appointed him a Superior Court judge in 1965, elevating him to the Supreme Court in 1968, where he served as an Associate Justice from May 17, 1968 until January 31, 1985, when he retired at the age of 62. He died on December 3, 2006 at age 84 in

Miami, Florida Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

, and was honored with a state funeral at the Supreme Court attended by Governor

Aníbal Acevedo Vilá Aníbal Salvador Acevedo Vilá (born 13 February 1962) is a Puerto Rican politician and lawyer. He served as the governor of Puerto Rico from 2005 to 2009. He is a Harvard University alumnus (LL.M. 1987) and a graduate of the University of Puer ...

, Senate President

Kenneth McClintock Kenneth Davison McClintock-Hernández (born January 19, 1957) is a politician who served as the twenty-second Secretary of State of Puerto Rico, one of the four longest serving in that post. McClintock served as co-chair of Hillary Clinton’s Na ...

, House Speaker

José Aponte Hernández Jose Fernando Aponte Hernández (born January 19, 1958) is an accountant and former Speaker of the House of Representatives of Puerto Rico. He was born in San Juan and obtained a bachelor's degree in Accounting from the University of Puerto Rico ...

as well as the six members of the Supreme Court.

Sources

*La Justicia en sus Manos by Luis Rafael Rivera, 1922 births 2006 deaths Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico Harvard Law School alumni University of Puerto Rico alumni People from Mayagüez, Puerto Rico 20th-century Puerto Rican lawyers 20th-century American judges {{PuertoRico-bio-stub