Home > West's Encyclopedia of American Law > Sanford, Edward Terry

An important influence on the development of civil liberties, Edward Terry Sanford served on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1923 to 1930. Sanford was a native of Tennessee with a cosmopolitan education, and before serving on the Court, he had a private law practice, served in the JUSTICE DEPARTMENT, and was a federal district judge in his home state for fourteen years. While on the Court, Sanford's views were largely moderate, and in his lifetime, he was overshadowed by his highly visible contemporaries. Nonetheless, Sanford's opinions on civil liberties helped advance the guarantees of the BILL OF RIGHTS: in two major opinions delivered in the 1920s, he laid the groundwork for modern Supreme Court decisions that restrict the power of states to limit