Alfred Morrison Franklin (September 30, 1871 – after 1948) was an American

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyzes and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal education in law (a law degree) and often a Lawyer, legal prac ...

and politician. He was the first chief justice of the

Arizona Supreme Court The Arizona Supreme Court is the state supreme court of the U.S. state of Arizona. Sitting in the Supreme Court building in downtown Phoenix, the court consists of a chief justice, a vice chief justice, and five associate justices. Each justi ...

and served as a member of

Arizona Arizona is a U.S. state, state in the Southwestern United States, Southwestern region of the United States, sharing the Four Corners region of the western United States with Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah. It also borders Nevada to the nort ...

's 1910 constitutional convention.

Biography

Franklin was born in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

, on September 30, 1871, to Anne (Johnston) and Benjamin Joseph Franklin. His early education came in the Kansas City public schools. In 1885, Franklin's father was appointed United States

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states thro ...

to Hankow and the younger Franklin was educated by private tutors while the family lived in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. After being

admitted to the bar An admission to practice law is acquired when a lawyer receives a license to practice law. In jurisdictions with two types of lawyer, as with barristers and solicitors, barristers must gain admission to the bar whereas for solicitors there are dist ...

in 1893, Franklin began practicing law in Phoenix, Arizona Territory. He served as

Assistant United States Attorney An assistant United States attorney (AUSA) is an official career civil service position in the U.S. Department of Justice composed of lawyers working under the U.S. attorney of each U.S. federal judicial district. They represent the federal gov ...

from 1895 to 1897 and during his father's term as Governor of Arizona Territory acted as the senior Franklin's personal secretary. Franklin married Cora Brill in 1901. The marriage produced two children: Kathleen and Josephine. For Arizona's 1910 constitutional convention, Franklin was elected to represent

Maricopa County Maricopa County () is a county in the south-central part of the U.S. state of Arizona. As of the 2020 census the population was 4,420,568, or about 62% of the state's total, making it the fourth-most populous county in the United States and ...

. He was a member of the Committee on Style, Revision, and Compilation, which determined the final wording of the constitution. His political positions were those of a moderate progressive. During the convention he proposed including provisions supporting

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

and

prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic b ...

in the document. The prohibition proposition was voted down 33 to 15. The women's suffrage proposal was likewise defeated. As statehood approached, Franklin was elected to the Arizona Supreme Court and became the first chief justice. He served a total of three terms on the bench, the first and third as chief justice while Henry D. Ross was chief justice during Franklin's second term. He was defeated in the 1918

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by Albert C. Baker with a vote of 14,419 to 12,275. The loss was attributed to voter discontent over the Arizona Supreme Court's ruling involving the disputed 1916 election results between Governor

George W. P. Hunt George Wylie Paul Hunt (November 1, 1859 – December 24, 1934) was an American politician and businessman. He was the first governor of Arizona, serving a total of seven terms, along with President of the convention that wrote Arizona's con ...

and challenger Thomas E. Campbell. Franklin was named Collector of Internal Revenue for the Arizona-New Mexico District on October 24, 1918, and resigned his position on the bench shortly thereafter. He held the position until February 7, 1922. Franklin's wife died from the

Spanish flu The 1918–1920 flu pandemic, also known as the Great Influenza epidemic or by the common misnomer Spanish flu, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 subtype of the influenza A virus. The earliest docum ...

on July 4, 1919. Franklin had an

introvert Extraversion and introversion are a central trait dimension in human personality theory. The terms were introduced into psychology by Carl Jung, though both the popular understanding and current psychological usage are not the same as Jung's o ...

ed personality and began withdrawing from society after her death. He eventually left his home and went to live alone in the desert. His last contact with his family occurred in 1938, but he is known to have lived for at least another decade. The date and place of Franklin's death are unknown.

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Franklin, Alfred Morrison Lawyers from Kansas City, Missouri Justices of the Arizona Supreme Court 1871 births Year of death unknown Chief justices of the Arizona Supreme Court Politicians from Kansas City, Missouri Activists from Missouri