Name Vernon Pearson | ||
Vernon Robert Pearson (September 17, 1923 – February 4, 2013) was an American jurist.
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Biography
Born in Bantry, North Dakota, Pearson served four years in the U.S. Navy prior to graduating from Jamestown College in 1947. He received his law degree from University of Michigan Law School in 1950.
From 1951 to 1952, he was attorney-advisor for the federal Economic Stabilization Agency in Seattle, working for William J. Steinert, a former justice of the state Supreme Court. Afterwards, Pearson engaged in the private practice of law with Davies, Person, Anderson and Pearson in Tacoma. In 1963, Pearson served as president of the Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association, and as a governor of the Washington State Bar Association in 1969.
Pearson served as a Washington state superior judge and was then appointed by Governor Daniel J. Evans to the newly created Washington Court of Appeals. In 1969, Pearson authored the first Court of Appeals opinion in the initial volume of the appellate reports, State v. Tate, 1 Wn. App. 1 (1969).
In 1982, Governor John Spellman appointed Pearson as an associate justice of the Washington Supreme Court. He served as an associate justice from 1982-1987 and then chief justice from 1987-1989.
He died in Gig Harbor, Washington.