A Diamond Anniversary: Tenth Circuit Formed and Robert E. Lewis Becomes First Chief Judge

• Publication year: 2004
• Pages: 51
• Citation: Vol. 33 No. 6 Pg. 51

33 Colo.Law. 51 Colorado Lawyer 2004.

2004, June, Pg. 51. A Diamond Anniversary: Tenth Circuit Formed and Robert E. Lewis Becomes First Chief Judge

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51

Vol. 33, No. 6, Pg. 51

The Colorado Lawyer
June 2004
Vol. 33, No. 6 [Page 51]

Departments
Historical Perspectives
A Diamond Anniversary: Tenth Circuit Formed and Robert E Lewis Becomes First Chief Judge
by Frank Gibbard

This historical perspective was written by Frank Gibbard, a staff attorney with the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals and Secretary of the newly formed Tenth Circuit Historical Society. He may be reached at Frank_Gibbard@ca.10.uscourts.gov

This year marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of the federal Tenth Circuit. A visitor to the second floor of the Byron White U.S. Courthouse in downtown Denver can view the official portraits of the judges who have served the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit during its seventy-five years The last portrait, at the end of the long, sunlit hallway, is that of the Circuit's first chief judge, Colorado jurist Robert E. Lewis (1857 - 1944).

Judge Lewis was a natural choice to head the fledgling Circuit. With his precisely-trimmed moustache and firmly set jaw, he looked almost archetypically judicial. By all accounts, his demeanor matched his appearance. "Judge Lewis was described by contemporaries as of very stern and severe mien, and no frivolity was allowed in his courtroom. Young attorneys tended to feel in awe of him." [The Federal Courts of the Tenth Circuit: A History (U.S.G.P.O. 1992) at 54.]

Judge Lewis's history reads like a Western novel. His father, Colonel Warner Lewis, served as a Confederate soldier and was the sole survivor of an Indian massacre in Coffeyville, Kansas. Robert Lewis learned the law in his spare time while working as a schoolteacher. After his health was ruined during arduous political campaigning in Missouri, he sought refuge (like his contemporary, gunfighter "Doc" Holliday) in Colorado's dry and temperate climate. He soon was elected to the Colorado district court bench.

In 1906, Lewis began his nearly forty-year tenure on the federal bench by becoming Colorado's second federal district court judge in an era when American legal culture was becoming increasingly professionalized and standardized [See generally Hall, The Magic Mirror: Law in American History 211-25 (Oxford Univ. Press, 1989).] Lewis exemplified...