James E. Yantis (April 13, 1856 – December 1, 1918) was a justice of the Texas Supreme Court from June 1915 to March 1918. Born in Columbus, Kentucky, Yantis moved with his family moved to Texas in the early 1870s, settling in Collin County, Texas. After graduating from Sam Houston Normal School (now

Sam Houston State University Sam Houston State University (SHSU or Sam) is a public university in Huntsville, Texas. It was founded in 1879 and is the third-oldest public college or university in Texas. It is one of the first normal schools west of the Mississippi River and ...

) in 1883, he

read law Reading law was the method used in common law countries, particularly the United States, for people to prepare for and enter the legal profession before the advent of law schools. It consisted of an extended internship or apprenticeship under the ...

in the office of John Church in McKinney, Texas, to gain

admission to the bar An admission to practice law is acquired when a lawyer receives a license to practice law. In jurisdictions with two types of lawyer, as with barristers and solicitors, barristers must gain admission to the bar whereas for solicitors there are dist ...

in 1887. Yantis entered the practice of law in

Sweetwater, Texas Sweetwater is a municipality in and the seat of Nolan County, Texas, United States. It is 123 miles southeast of Lubbock and 40 miles west of Abilene, Texas. Its population was 10,906 at the 2010 census. History The town's name "Sweetwater" is t ...

, moving to Waco, Texas in 1893.Biography of J. E. Yantis
University of Texas. While practicing there, Yantis represented accused murderer Thomas J. Fulcher in a high-profile case. Fulcher had previously been convicted of the murder at issue, but the prior conviction had been set aside several years after the initial conviction; in the retrial, Yantis successfully persuaded the jury to convict Fulcher of a lesser offense of assault with intent to kill, and was then able to have the Texas Court of Appeals dismiss the conviction on the grounds that the statute of limitations for charging that crime had passed.Bill Neal, ''Getting Away with Murder on the Texas Frontier'' (2006), p. 40-45. In 1896, Yantis was elected to the Texas Senate, representing Texas Senate District 11. He resigned from that seat in 1897 to serve as assistant attorney general. In 1915, Governor

James E. Ferguson James Edward Ferguson Jr. (August 31, 1871 – September 21, 1944), known as Pa Ferguson, was an American Democratic politician and the 26th Governor of Texas, in office from 1915 to 1917. He was indicted and impeached during his second term, ...

appointed Yantis to a seat on the Texas Supreme Court vacated by the elevation of Nelson Phillips to the office of Chief Justice following the death of the previous chief justice, Thomas Jefferson Brown. He was re-elected to the seat in 1916, serving until March 1918, when he resigned due to poor health. He died later that year, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery.

References

Justices of the Texas Supreme Court 1856 births 1918 deaths People from Hickman County, Kentucky U.S. state supreme court judges admitted to the practice of law by reading law Sam Houston State University alumni 19th-century American judges Candidates in the 1907 United States elections {{Texas-state-judge-stub