Died 16 September 1958 | ||
Harold Alexander Moise (August 23, 1879 - September 16, 1958) was a Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court from 1948 to 1958.
Born in Natchitoches, Louisiana, Moise was the third son of Judge James Campbell Moise and Aline Sompayrac Moise.
He graduated from the Cote Brilliante University of St. Louis in 1899, and from Tulane University Law School in 1902, where he was president of his class and was selected as salutatorian. He then commenced the practice of law until 1908, when he was elected to represent the 12th Ward of New Orleans in the Legislature. He was assistant attorney for the Orleans levee board from 1912 to 1916, and served as General Counsel of the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans from 1920 to 1936. In 1920 he was also a leading member of the successful campaign to elect John M. Parker as Governor of Louisiana. He was a delegate to the 1921 Louisiana Constitutional Convention.
In 1937, he was elected to Division C of the Civil District Court of Louisiana, in New Orleans, becoming the Presiding Judge of that court in 1947. One of the final cases assigned to him was an effort by a vending machine company to prevent the city of New Orleans from seizing and destroying certain "mint vending bell machines". Moise was set to hear the case in 1948, but it was reassigned because he "was advanced to the Supreme Court". Governor Huey Long had intended to call a special election to fill the vacancy created on that court by the death of Nathaniel W. Bond, but after all three of the Democratic organizations of that district endorsed Moise, Long called off the election and appointed Moise directly. In 1952, Moise ran unopposed for election to a full 14-year term on the court, serving thereafter until his death, in New Orleans. He was succeeded on the court by Walter B. Hamlin.
Moise was married to Io Leigh Bres from January 1903 until her death in 1927; they had three daughters and two sons, including Harold Moise, Jr., who served as the state's Supreme Court Clerk of Court from 1969 to 1978. In 1930, Moise married Amelia Keyes O'Neal Harris.