Kenneth J. O'Connell (December 8, 1909 – February 18, 2000) was an American educator and jurist in the state of

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

. He served as the 36th Chief Justice of the

Oregon Supreme Court The Oregon Supreme Court (OSC) is the highest state court in the U.S. state of Oregon. The only court that may reverse or modify a decision of the Oregon Supreme Court is the Supreme Court of the United States.Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, he also served as a longtime professor at the

University of Oregon The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...

’s law school.

Early life

Kenneth O'Connell was born on December 8, 1909, in

Bayfield, Wisconsin Bayfield is a city in Bayfield County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 584 at the 2020 census. This makes it the city with the smallest population in Wisconsin. In fact, for a new city to be incorporated today, state regulations re ...

. He attended the

University of Wisconsin Law School The University of Wisconsin Law School is the professional graduate law school of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Located in Madison, Wisconsin, the school was founded in 1868. The University of Wisconsin Law School is guided by a "law in ...

, where he earned two law degrees, one in 1933 and another in 1934.

Legal career

After graduating from law school O'Connell took a job at the

University of Oregon School of Law The University of Oregon School of Law is a public law school in the U.S. state of Oregon. Housed in the Knight Law Center, it is Oregon's only state funded law school. The school, founded in 1884, is located on the University of Oregon campus in ...

in 1935 as a professor. He was appointed to the position by Dean

Wayne Morse Wayne Lyman Morse (October 20, 1900 – July 22, 1974) was an American attorney and United States Senator from Oregon. Morse is well known for opposing his party's leadership and for his opposition to the Vietnam War on constitutional grounds. ...

and taught a variety of subjects as the school had few professors in the early years.Schmidkunz, Eliza
Kenneth J. O’Connell: Scholar of the Classroom and the Courtroom.
University Of Oregon School Of Law. Retrieved on April 9, 2008. Later he served on commissions in the 1950s and 1960s to revise Oregon's

laws Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vari ...

and

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When these princ ...

. He had earlier campaigned for law reforms in

and was selected to head the committee to revise Oregon's statutes in 1949. In 1953, O'Connell received the Award of Merit from the

Oregon State Bar The Oregon State Bar Association (OSBA) is a public corporation and instrumentality of the Oregon Judicial Department in the U.S. state of Oregon. Founded in 1890 as the private Oregon Bar Association, it became a public entity in 1935 that regulat ...

.Award of Merit and President’s Awards.
Oregon State Bar. Retrieved on April 9, 2008.

Judicial career

O'Connell's career on the

James T. Brand James Tenney Brand (October 9, 1886 – February 28, 1964) was the 31st Chief Justice of the Oregon Supreme Court, serving in that role from 1951 to 1953. While serving on court from 1941 to 1958 his service was interrupted when he was chosen to ...

after Brand resigned. His appointment came July 1, 1958, and was then elected to a full six-year term later that year. Justice O'Connell won re-election in both 1964 and 1974. While on the court he was given the Distinguished Service Award from the University of Oregon in 1967.University Awards: The Hon. Kenneth J. O'Connell.
University of Oregon. Retrieved on April 9, 2008. He then was selected by his fellow justices to serve as chief justice from 1970 to 1976. O'Connell did not seek re-election in 1976 and then retired from the bench at the end of his term in 1977.

Family and later life

In 1964 Kenneth J. O'Connell married Esther Foster O'Connell. Kenneth had two sons, Tom and Dan, from a previous marriage to Evelyn O'Connell. O’Connell was known to doodle while listening to cases at the supreme court, and used a chalkboard to map out his legal decisions while in

chambers Chambers may refer to: Places Canada: *Chambers Township, Ontario United States: *Chambers County, Alabama * Chambers, Arizona, an unincorporated community in Apache County * Chambers, Nebraska * Chambers, West Virginia * Chambers Township, Hol ...

. The

awarded him their Law Meritorious Service Award in 1985. He was also given the Distinguished Service Award from the

American Civil Liberties Union The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". T ...

of Oregon. Kenneth O'Connell died in Salem, Oregon, on February 18, 2000, at the age of 90. The University of Oregon holds an annual symposium named in his honor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oconnell, Kenneth J. 1909 births 2000 deaths 20th-century American judges Chief Justices of the Oregon Supreme Court Justices of the Oregon Supreme Court People from Bayfield, Wisconsin University of Wisconsin Law School alumni University of Oregon faculty