Justices Who Died in Office
The Tudors’ mnemonic ran divorced, beheaded, died. The Court’s runs longer and needs only three words — died, resigned, retired — and for 51 of the 116 justices, it was died, in the robe.
51 of the 116 justices — about 44% — died in office, from James Wilson in a Carolina tavern in 1798 to Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020. Nine were Chief Justices. The oldest was Roger Taney at 87 — a record Ginsburg missed by weeks. The youngest was James Iredell at 48, worn out by circuit riding. For the Court’s first century and a half, death was simply how most tenures ended; since 1954, it has happened only three times.
How many Supreme Court justices have died in office?
51 of the 116 justices in the Court's history — about 44% — died while still holding their seats. For the Court's first 165 years it was closer to the rule than the exception: a life appointment usually meant exactly that. The full methodology (including the borderline cases of Horace Gray, Taft, and Hugo Black) is at the bottom of this page.
Which Chief Justices died in office?
Nine of the seventeen Chief Justices: John Marshall (1835), Roger Taney (1864), Salmon Chase (1873), Morrison Waite (1888), Melville Fuller (1910), Edward White (1921), Harlan Fiske Stone (1946), Fred Vinson (1953), and William Rehnquist (2005). Marshall and Taney between them held the center chair for sixty-three consecutive years and both died in it.
Who was the last Supreme Court justice to die in office?
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, on September 18, 2020, at 87 — the third in the modern era, after Antonin Scalia (2016) and Chief Justice William Rehnquist (2005). Before Rehnquist, no justice had died in office for 51 years — the longest such stretch in the Court's history, running from Robert Jackson's death in 1954.
Has a justice ever died at the Court itself?
Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone came closest: on April 22, 1946, he was stricken in open court while reading a dissent from the bench, and died that evening. A century earlier, Philip Barbour died in his sleep mid-case — during the Amistad arguments of February 1841 — and the Court convened the next morning only to adjourn.
When did dying in office stop being the norm?
Slowly, after Congress created full retirement pensions for justices in 1869. Of the 39 justices appointed before that act, 25 died in office; of the 77 appointed after it, just 26 have. The pension turned the life appointment into a choice — though as the profiles of Nathan Clifford (who refused to leave) and Robert Grier (who had to be pushed) show, not everyone chose.
Strange deaths of the mortal court
The list has its own folklore. Melville Fuller died on the Fourth of July. Edward Sanford died on the same day as William Howard Taft — the retired Chief Justice he had served beside — giving Washington a double funeral in March 1930. Frank Murphy and Wiley Rutledge died ten weeks apart in the summer of 1949, handing Truman two seats at once. John Catron’s seat was abolished when he died in 1865, and James Wayne’s followed two years later — the only two seats ever extinguished with their occupants. And Horace Gray managed to die in office after resigning: his 1902 resignation was contingent on a successor being appointed, and he did not live to see it.
The Full List, in Order
Era by Era
The pattern in one glance: dying in office was the norm through the nineteenth century, and the exception after the 1869 pension act took hold.
The Founding Court (1789–1801) · 5 of 10
The Marshall Court (1801–1835) · 8 of 10
The Taney Court (1836–1864) · 10 of 14
Reconstruction & the Gilded Age (1864–1910) · 15 of 23
The White & Taft Courts (1910–1930) · 6 of 18
Hughes, Stone & Vinson Courts (1930–1953) · 4 of 12
Burger & Rehnquist Courts (1969–2005) · 3 of 12
Methodology
A justice is counted if they died while still holding the commission. Horace Gray is counted: his 1902 resignation was contingent on the appointment of a successor and never took effect. Four near-misses are not counted, because each left the bench before dying — Robert Grier (retired January 1870, died that September), William Howard Taft (resigned February 1930, died five weeks later), Hugo Black (retired September 17, 1971, died eight days later), and John Marshall Harlan II (retired September 1971, died that December). Ages are computed from birth and death dates; years on Court are rounded from commission years. Details and sources are on each justice’s profile page.