Donald Burt Yarbrough (born August 5, 1941, in

Dallas, Texas Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...

) served as a justice of the

Texas Supreme Court The Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) is the court of last resort for civil matters (including juvenile delinquency cases, which are categorized as civil under the Texas Family Code) in the U.S. state of Texas. A different court, the Texas Court o ...

until being forced to

resign Resignation is the formal act of relinquishing or vacating one's office or position. A resignation can occur when a person holding a position gained by election or appointment steps down, but leaving a position upon the expiration of a term, or ...

on charges of crimes for which he later spent six years in prison. Yarbrough ran for the Texas Supreme Court in 1976 claiming that God wanted him to run for that office. Yarbrough defeated a well-respected judge, Charles Barrow, in the Democratic Party primary, mainly because most voters confused him with either

Don Yarborough Donald Howard Yarborough (December 15, 1925 – September 23, 2009)Tolson, Mik ''Houston Chronicle'', 2009-09-23, retrieved 2009-09-23 was an American Democratic politician who was among the first in the U.S. South to endorse the Civil R ...

(who had run for Governor before) or Senator

Ralph Yarborough Ralph Webster Yarborough (June 8, 1903 – January 27, 1996) was an American politician and lawyer. He was a Texas Democratic politician who served in the United States Senate from 1957 to 1971 and was a leader of the progressive wing of his p ...

. Yarbrough's election to the Supreme Court was in spite of various scandals, such as being indicted for forging an auto registration and lying to a grand jury. Yarbrough resigned from the Texas Supreme Court in July 1977. He was convicted of lying to the grand jury in January 1978 and he fled with his family to

Grenada Grenada is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean Sea. The southernmost of the Windward Islands, Grenada is directly south of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and about north of Trinidad and Tobago, Trinidad and the So ...

in 1981. Grenada refused to extradite Yarbrough and he attended

St. George's University St. George's University is a private for-profit Medical school in the Caribbean, medical school and international university in Grenada, West Indies, offering degrees in medicine, veterinary medicine, public health, the health sciences, nursing ...

School of Medicine (SGUSOM). However, while attending classes at SGUSOM's campus in

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, sometimes known simply as Saint Vincent or SVG, is an island country in the eastern Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies, at the south ...

in 1983, he was arrested by U.S. consular officials. Yarbrough was sentenced to six years in federal prison in 1986 for bribery. Yarbrough,

Federal Bureau of Prisons The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Justice that is responsible for all List of United States federal prisons, federal prisons ...

#36007-079, was released on March 8, 1990.Donald Burt Yarbrough
"

. Retrieved on July 30, 2010. He died on August 12, 2017, in

Orlando Orlando commonly refers to: * Orlando, Florida, a city in the United States Orlando may also refer to: People * Orlando (given name), a masculine name, includes a list of people with the name * Orlando (surname), includes a list of people wit ...

, Florida.

Sources

Justices of Texas 1836-1986 - Donald Burt Yarbrough
{{DEFAULTSORT:Yarbrough, Don 1941 births Living people Lawyers from Dallas Justices of the Supreme Court of Texas Texas Democrats