Warner Cope

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Warner Cope
6th Chief Justice of California
In office 1863–1864
Preceded by	Stephen J. Field
Succeeded by	Silas W. Sanderson

Warner Walton Cope' (January 31, 1824 – January 17, 1903), also known as W. W. Cope, was the 6th Chief Justice of California.

Born in Kentucky, Cope came to California in 1850 and tried mining, but found little success. In 1853 he resumed work as an attorney, first in El Dorado County and the next year in Jackson, Amador County. He was elected to the state legislature in 1858. In June 1859 he was nominated by Alvinza Hayward,^[1] also of Amador County, to be the candidate of the Democratic Lecompton Party for associate justice of the Supreme Court of California. In September 1859, he was elected, but before his term was to begin he was appointed by the governor to fill a vacancy on the court.^[2] He became Chief Justice in 1863 after President Abraham Lincoln appointed Stephen J. Field to the U.S. Supreme Court. Cope himself left the court at the end of that year. After leaving the court, Cope returned to private practice until about 1893, at which point he retired to Contra Costa County, where he raised nuts and fruit. He was president of the San Francisco Bar Association from 1880 to 1885. He died in San Francisco

Cope married early in life; three sons and three daughters outlived him. One of his sons, Walter B. Cope, was a Superior Court judge and a prominent California lawyer.^[3] Like his father, he also served as president of the San Francisco Bar Association, from 1906-9.^[4]

References

• Reports of Cases determined in the Supreme Court of the state of California, Volume 140, San Francisco, Bancroft-Whitney Company, 1906, p. 713-8.

1. "Democratic Lecompton Convention, Third Day" Sacramento Daily Union, Vol. 17, Number 2573, June 25, 1859
2. https://archive.org/stream/baysanfrancisco01compgoog/baysanfrancisco01compgoog_djvu.txt
3. "Morrison Foster". Morrison Foster LLP. Retrieved 8 August 2012.
4. http://www.sfbar.org/about/past_presidents.aspx BASF Past Presidents