Gray was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Horace and Harriet Upham Gray, and grandson of merchant and politicianWilliam Gray.[2][3][4] He enrolled at Harvard College at the age of 13, and graduated four years later. After traveling in Europe for a time, Gray entered Harvard Law School, from which he graduated with an LL.B. in 1849.[5] Gray was admitted to the bar in 1851, and practiced law in Boston for 13 years.[6]
Judicial career
Massachusetts state courts
In 1854, he was named Reporter of Decisions for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. While serving in this capacity, Gray edited sixteen volumes of court records, and also served as a counselor to the governor of Massachusetts on legal and constitutional questions. The quality of Gray's work earned him a reputation for historical scholarship and legal research.[6]
Gray was appointed to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court as an associate justice in 1864. At age 36, he was the youngest appointee in the Court's history. Nine years later he was elevated to chief justice.[6] While serving as chief justice, Gray hired Louis D. Brandeis as a clerk, becoming the first justice of that court to hire a law clerk.[7]
As he had been in Massachusetts, Gray was also the first U.S. Supreme Court justice to hire a law clerk. He used his own funds to pay the clerk's salary, as no government money was appropriated for this purpose at the time.[8] Additionally, he was one of the few Supreme Court appointees in the latter half of the 19th century who had not previously been a politician, and he maintained the opinion that law and politics were entirely separate fields.
The most enduring of his written opinions is the one he authored in Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York v. Hillmon (1892), which held that a declarant's out-of-court statement of his intention to do something or go somewhere in the future is admissible under the "state-of-mind" hearsay exception. "The letters in question were competent, not as narratives of facts communicated to [Walters] by others, nor yet as proof that he actually went away from Wichita, but as evidence that, shortly before the time when other evidence tended to show that he went away, he had the intention of going, and of going with Hillmon, which made it more probable both that he did go and that he went with Hillmon, than if there had been no proof of such intention." This holding was subsequently codified in Rule 803(3) of the Federal Rules of Evidence,[9] as well as the evidence laws in most states.
Gray was also the author of the 1898 case United States v. Wong Kim Ark, ruling that "a child born in the United States, of parents of Chinese descent, who, at the time of his birth, are subjects of the Emperor of China, but have a permanent domicil and residence in the United States, and are there carrying on business, and are not employed in any diplomatic or official capacity under the Emperor of China, becomes at the time of his birth a citizen of the United States.".[10]
He joined the majority in Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895), a 5–4 ruling that the unapportionedincome taxes on interest, dividends and rents imposed by the Income Tax Act of 1894 were unconstitutional. This case was heard twice, though only the second hearing resulted in a decision; the justices, feeling that the opinions written had not adequately explained their view of the situation, wished to rehear the case. After the first hearing, Gray wrote that he sided with the defendant (Farmer's Loan & Trust), arguing that the tax was indeed constitutional. He was in the minority, however. After the second hearing, Gray changed his stance, joining with the majority in favor of the plaintiff. He also sided with the majority in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), a 7–1 ruling that upheld the constitutionality of racial segregation laws for public facilities as long as the segregated facilities were equal in quality.
Gray served on the US Supreme Court for over 20 years, until his death on September 15, 1902. He was succeeded by a fellow Massachusetts native, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who, like Gray, previously served on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.[2]
^ abc"Horace Gray, 1882-1902". supremecourthistory.org. Washington, D.C.: Supreme Court Historical Society. Archived from the original on January 1, 2019. Retrieved December 31, 2018.
Spector, Robert M. (1968). "Legal Historian on the United States Supreme Court: Justice Horace Gray, Jr., and the Historical Method". American Journal of Legal History. 12 (3). Temple University: 181–210. doi:10.2307/844125. JSTOR844125.
Koslosky, Daniel Ryan, "Ghosts of Horace Gray: Customary International Law as Expectation in Human Rights Litigation" 97 Kentucky Law Journal 615 (2009)
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