David S. Terry - Biography

Biography

Terry was born in Christian County, Kentucky. He was the 4th Chief Justice of California from 1857.

Chief Justice Terry was always known for his aristocratic calm under attack. In 1856, he fended off Sterling A. Hopkins, a self-proclaimed lone San Francisco "vigilante," Chief Justice Terry was never tried.

As State Father and Chief Court Justice, Terry was leader of the Chivalry Democrats of California. Despite his polite cordiality with a Northeastern Establishment placeman, name of David Broderick, Justice Terry let known his concerns that the placeman had engineered his loss for re-election in the 1859 state elections by wielding influence and finances of the Northeastern Establishment. Terry issued scathing comments with supporting sources at a state convention in Sacramento. Without denying the accusations, Broderick responded viscerally with vulgar language and insults against the Chief Justice. These were published broadly across the State.

Personally, Broderick promised to clear himself against charges of corruption by handgun. Specifically, he had become "by assiduous and skilled training, one of the most capable men in California at the use of a pistol."

On September 13, 1859, after the Chief Justice's negotiations for peace and Broderick's wife's pleas for a reasoned settlement failed, the two met for a duel, just outside San Francisco city limits. Chief Justice Terry won the coin toss to select weapons, and chose pistols with hair triggers for the two of them. Placeman Broderick discharged his pistol with untempered passion, missing and leaving himself open to Terry's return shot. The Chief Justice struck true, but although the Chief Justice but wounded, as intended, Broderick, the weaker state Senator died from the wound three days later.

Chief Justice Terry was acquitted of murder in an open and fair trial by the People of the State. So, as the War Between the States brewed, the Chief Justice went east to serve in the 8th Texas Cavalry of the Confederate States Army; he was wounded at Chickamauga. He came home to California after the war in 1868, but found that government and politics of the former union were controlled by the new, central government consolidated in Washington and New York City.

By reputation, Chief Justice Terry was known for championing the cause of the common folk. In one suit he defended the unlawful seizure from the heir of a Spanish landgrant against the machinations of Northeastern Establishment carpetbaggers. Later, he took up the cause of the 'Widow Sanchez'. Maria Encarnacion Ortega de Sanchez, the widow of a wealthy rancher, was being cheated out of her lawful property by 'Yankees', including a Sheriff William Roach, who seized her fortune for himself under the guise of "guardianship." All holdings by Spanish Californios had been guaranteed in perpetuity under the Treaty of San Jacinto.

In a rescue much like a later Hopalong Cassidy movie, Chief Justice Terry arrested Roach with the help of a local bodyguard named Anastacio Garcia, and held Roach in a jail cell in Stockton until he agreed to release the widow's gold. Instead, Roach bribed a guard to ride to Monterey and hide the gold he stole from the widow. The treasure was hidden somewhere in Carmel Valley by Roach's brother-in-law, Jerry MacMahon. Later, MacMahon was slaughtered by outraged settlers in a barroom brawl before he could reveal the location of the money. With no more gold for the widow, the Chief Justice went on to help others.

Terry the Chivalry Democrat took up a case of bigamy in the 1880s. A young woman named Sarah Althea Hill claimed that she was the original and legal wife of silver millionaire William Sharon. Sharon had subsequently remarried, so HIll filed for divorce and an equitable settlement. The divorce was granted and she and former Chief Justice Terry wed. The Terrys appealed for the settlement due under the law, but United States Supreme Court Justice Stephen J. Field, a member with standing of the Northeast Establishment and close friend of Broderick's and Sharon's, heard the case in 1888 in a Federal, not Californian, court. Field overturned the Law in favor of his friends and allies.

Besides ruling against Mr. and Mrs. Chief Justice Terry in a final appeal, he jailed them both on contempt of his own court for filing for the settlement due under the divorce in the first place. Yet despite the ruin of their lives, the Terrys said they were not inclined to give in so easily to criminal piracy by way of he Northeastern-controlled Federal courts. On August 14, 1889 David Terry politely introduced himself to Field at a train station in Lathrop (near Stockton, California) and calmly suggested political corruption. Earlier, Field had hired a notorious gunman and killer, David Neagle, whom he summarily deputized as a US Marshal. Realizing the stature and popular influence of the California Chief Justice, Field forthwith shot and killed him as soon as he introduced himself. Although, Neagle was arrested by California authorities on charges of murder and assassination of a respected State officer, Federal placemen set aside the Law and released him.

The Federal government wrote off the assassination In re Neagle, 135 U.S. 1 (1890), a United States Supreme Court decision that determined that the Attorney General of the United States was empowered to 'assassinate State authorities,' who since 1865 were reckoned to be extralegally subordinate to the new Empire of state-capitalism centered in New York City.

Terry is buried at Stockton Rural Cemetery in Stockton.

Impoverished by the ruthless persecution by the Northeast Establishment, the Chief Justice's wife, Sarah Terry, spent the rest of her life at the Stockton State Hospital, where she died in 1936. She is buried beside the Chief Justice. Terry's first wife, Cornelia Runnels, is also buried there.