Steele Hays (March 25, 1925 – June 22, 2011) was a justice of the

Arkansas Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Arkansas is the highest court in the state judiciary of Arkansas. It has ultimate and largely discretionary appellate jurisdiction over all state court cases that involve a point of state law, and original jurisdiction o ...

from 1981 to 1994. Born in

Little Rock, Arkansas (The Little Rock, The "Little Rock") , government_type = council-manager government, Council-manager , leader_title = List of mayors of Little Rock, Arkansas, Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_ ...

, Hays received a

B.A. Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in history and political science from the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and the largest university in the state. Founded as Arkansas ...

in 1948, and a J.D. from

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

in 1948. In 1979, Governor

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

appointed Hays to the inaugural bench of the

Arkansas Court of Appeals The Arkansas Court of Appeals is the intermediate appellate court for the state of Arkansas. It was created in 1978 by Amendment 58 of the Arkansas Constitution, which was implemented by Act 208 of the Arkansas General Assembly in 1979. The court ...

, and in 1981, elevated Hays to the state supreme court. Hays retired from the court in 1994."Former Arkansas Supreme Court justice dies at age 86", ''Baxter Bulletin'', Mountain Home, Arkansas (June 24, 2011), p. 13A.Arkansas Courts
A Self-Guided Tour of Justice Building Portraits
(2016), p. 15. Hays died at the age of 86 in a hospital in

Conway, Arkansas Conway is a city in the U.S. state of Arkansas and the county seat of Faulkner County, located in the state's most populous Metropolitan Statistical Area, Central Arkansas. Although considered a suburb of Little Rock, Conway is unusual in that ...

, due to complications from a lung disease.

References

1925 births 2011 deaths Lawyers from Little Rock, Arkansas University of Arkansas alumni George Washington University Law School alumni Justices of the Arkansas Supreme Court {{Arkansas-state-judge-stub