William R. Staples (1798–1868) was a justice of the

Rhode Island Supreme Court The Rhode Island Supreme Court is the court of last resort in the U.S. State of Rhode Island. The Court consists of a Chief Justice and four Associate Justices, all selected by the Governor of Rhode Island from candidates vetted by the Judicial No ...

from June 1835 to March 7, 1856, serving as Chief Justice after 1854.
Manual - the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations
' (1891), p. 208-13. Born in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts Bay ...

, Staples graduated from

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

in 1817, and was admitted to the bar in 1819.Stephen O. Edwards, "The Supreme Court of Rhode Island", in

Horace Williams Fuller Horace Williams Fuller (June 15, 1844 – October 26, 1901) was an American lawyer and editor who served as the first editor of ''The Green Bag'', a late-19th- and early-20th century legal news and humor magazine. Life and career Born in Aug ...

, et al., eds., ''The Green Bag'', Vol. 2. (1890), p. 535-36. In 1832 he was a member of the Common Council of Providence, and later served for two years as Justice of the Police Court. From 1835 to 1854 he was an associate justice of the Supreme Court. While serving on the court, he engaged in historical studies and antiquarian research. In 1843 he published his ''Annals of Providence'', a history of the city from its founding until 1832. He was the author and compiler of several works upon subjects connected with the early history of Rhode Island. At the request of the General Assembly, he prepared a history of the State Convention of 1790 which adopted the Federal Constitution. After the resignation of Chief Justice Richard W. Greene in 1854, Staples was elected chief justice. After holding the office for two years, he resigned as of March 7, 1856, due to health issues. He wrote few reported opinions, most of which were very short, and are mainly brief statements of the conclusions reached by the court rather than elaborate statements of the reasons upon which the decision rested.

References

1798 births 1868 deaths Lawyers from Providence, Rhode Island Brown University alumni U.S. state supreme court judges admitted to the practice of law by reading law Justices of the Rhode Island Supreme Court 19th-century American judges {{RhodeIsland-state-judge-stub