Donald Hunter (judge)

Donald Herbert Hunter (October 21, 1911 – October 27, 1991)^[1][2] was a justice of the Indiana Supreme Court from January 2, 1967, to September 6, 1985,^[3] including service as chief justice for three terms during that period.

Early life, education, and military and political service

Born in Anderson, Indiana,^[1][3] Hunter received an LL.B. from the short-lived Lincoln College of Law in Indianapolis, in 1937.^[1][2][3] He was an initiated member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity from Butler University.^[4] He represented Madison County, Indiana, in the Indiana House of Representatives from 1943 to 1944,^[2] and served in an infantry unit in the United States Army in the European theatre of World War II, from 1943 to 1946,^[1] receiving a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star Medal.^[2] Still a member of the state legislature, in 1944 he was briefly "furloughed from the Army to attend a special legislative session".^[1]

Judicial service

Hunter was a state circuit judge from 1948 to 1962, and a judge of the Indiana Court of Appeals from 1963 to 1966.^[2][3]

He served on the state supreme court from 1967 until he reached the mandatory retirement age in 1985.^[2][3] He was the first judge to serve on all three levels of the Indiana judiciary.^[1] Hunter "distinguished himself as a progressive civil law judge", who "championed the rights of Indiana's working men and women", while also being viewes as "a conservative in criminal cases".^[1] From 1967 to 1971, he also served on the Indiana Constitutional Revision Commission.^[2][3]

Personal life and death

On October 14, 1941, Hunter married Violet Oemler of Covington, Kentucky,^[5] with whom he had a daughter and a son. Hunter died in a retirement home in LaGrange, Indiana, at the age of 80.^[2]