In 1884, Van Devanter moved to the Wyoming Territory where he became the city attorney of Cheyenne. He served on a commission to revise the statutes of Wyoming Territory in 1886, and as a member of the territorial legislature in 1888.[2] He also served as an attorney to the Wyoming Stock Growers Association during the 1889–93Johnson County War, managing to strain the local courts' (and county's) budget and delay trials while his clients and their allies worked to make key witnesses and the gunman unavailable, as well as securing favorable press coverage from the state's most influential papers while threatening to sue the Johnson County paper for slander.[3]
He served as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Wyoming from 1889 to 1890,[2] then resumed his private law practice. The Union Pacific and other railroads were among his major clients.
In 1896 Van Devanter represented the state of Wyoming before the U.S. Supreme Court in Ward v. Race Horse 163 U.S. 504 (1896). This involved a state poaching charge for hunting out of season, and its purported conflict with an Indian treaty that allowed the activity. The Native Americans won in the U.S. Federal District Court; the judgment was reversed on appeal to the Supreme Court by a 7–1 majority.[4][5][6]
Van Devanter had chronic "pen paralysis",[11] and, as a result, he wrote fewer opinions than the other justices, averaging three a term during his last decade on the Court.[8] He rarely wrote on constitutional issues.[11] However, he was widely respected as an expert on judicial procedure. In December 1921, Chief Justice Taft appointed him, along with Justices McReynolds and Sutherland, to draw up a proposal that would amend the nation's Judicial code and which would define further the jurisdiction of the nation's circuit courts.
Known widely as "the Judges' Bill", it retained mandatory jurisdiction over cases that raised questions regarding federal jurisdiction. It called for the circuit courts of appeal to have appellate jurisdiction to review "by appeal or writ of error" final decisions in the district courts, as well as for the district courts for Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, China, the Virgin Islands and the Canal Zone. The circuit courts were also empowered to modify, enforce or set aside orders of the Federal Communications Commission, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Trade Commission. The proposed bill further provided that "a final judgment or decree in any suit in the highest court of a state in which a decision in the suit could be had, where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of the United States may be reviewed by the Supreme Court on a writ of error." Lastly, cases involving final decrees which brought into question the validity of a wide range of Federal or state treaties would come to the Court by certiorari. Four justices would be required to vote affirmatively to accept petitions, which meant that the Court's agenda would now be enrolled by "judicial review." The Chief Justice, together with the three Justices, made repeated trips to Congress, and in 1925, after two years of debate, the new Code was passed.
Retirement and final years
Van Devanter's influence began to wane in the early 1930s with the departures of Chief Justice Taft and Justice Sanford and he ultimately retired from the Supreme Court on June 2, 1937,[1][2] after Congress voted full pay for justices over seventy who retired.[12] He acknowledged that he might have retired five years earlier due to illness, if not for his concern about New Deal legislation, and that he depended upon his salary.[4] In 1932, five years prior to Van Devanter's retirement, Congress had halved Supreme Court pensions.[13] Congress had temporarily restored them to full pay in February 1933,[13] only to halve them again next month by the Economy Act.[14] He was the last serving Supreme Court Justice appointed by President Taft. Van Devanter was replaced by Hugo Black.[15]
After retirement, he lived on a 700 acres (280 ha) farm near Ellicott City, Maryland.[16][17] He also remained available to hear cases in the lower courts and presided over civil trials.[18]
At the turn of the century, Van Devanter purchased Pate Island in the Woods Bay area along Georgian Bay in Ontario, Canada. There he enjoyed hunting and fishing.[19]
^ abOliver Wendell Holmes: law and the inner self, G. Edward White pg. 469
^McKenna, Marian Cecilia. Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Constitutional War: The Court-Packing Crisis of 1937. New York: Fordham University, 2002, p. 35-36, 335-336.
^Ball, Howard. Hugo L. Black: Cold Steel Warrior. Oxford University Press. 2006. ISBN0-19-507814-4. Page 93.
^"Van Devanter is 79". The New York Times. April 18, 1938. Retrieved February 15, 2022.
Abraham, Henry J. (1999). Justices, Presidents, and Senators: A History of the U.S. Supreme Court Appointments from Washington to Clinton (Revised ed.). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN0-8476-9604-9.