Thacher, Thomas D. (Thomas Day), 1881-1950

Judge.

Lawyer, judge, and in 1930-33 Solicitor General of the United States.

Thomas Day Thacher (1881-1950): assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of N.Y., 1907-1908; judge of the U.S. District Court, 1925-1930; solicitor general of the U.S., 1930-1933; active in New York City politics; chairman, New York City Charter Revision Commission, 1935; private law practice, 1933-1943; corporation counsel of the City of N.Y., 1943; judge in N.Y. State Court of Appeals, 1943-1948.

Thomas Day Thacher (1881-1950): assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of NY, 1907-1908; judge of the U.S. District Court, 1925-1930; solicitor general of the U.S., 1930-1933; active in New York City politics; chairman, New York City Charter Revision Commission, 1935; private law practice, 1933-1943; corporation counsel of the City of N.Y., 1943; judge in NY State Court of Appeals, 1943-1948.

Thomas Day Thacher, son of Thomas and Sarah McCullogh (Green) Thacher, was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, September 10, 1881. Thacher's father, a prominent member of the New York bar, was the son of Thomas Anthony Thacher, a Yale University Professor of Latin. After attending Taft School, Watertown, Connecticut, and Phillips Academy, Andover, Thacher graduated from Yale in 1904. Upon the completion of two years of study at Yale Law School, he was admitted to the New York bar in 1906 and began practicing law with his father's firm, Simpson, Thacher, and Bartlett.

During 1907 and 1908 Thacher served under Henry L. Stimson as Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. From 1909 to 1910 he continued to work for Stimson as a special assistant in the prosecution of customs and fraud cases. Returning to Simpson, Thacher, and Bartlett, Thacher became a partner of the firm in 1914. During World War I (1917-1918), he served as an American Red Cross major in Russia.

By 1925 Thacher's legal expertise had become widely recognized, and in that year President Coolidge appointed him U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York. After five years of service on the federal bench, Judge Thacher was appointed Solicitor General by President Hoover in April 1930. While in office Thacher argued a number of important cases before the Supreme Court. These included U.S. v. McIntosh (238 U.S. 605) and U.S. v. Bland (238 U.S. 636), which clarified the obligations of naturalized citizens to bear arms; Cromwell v. Benson (285 U.S. 22), involving the constitutionality of the longshoremen's and harbor worker's compensation act; and U.S. v. Flores (289 U.S. 137), involving entrapment as a defense to a criminal prosecution under a federal statute.

Among Thacher's other important activities as Solicitor General was an investigation of bankruptcy law and practice which resulted in recommendations for amending federal bankruptcy laws and provisions for railroad and corporate reorganization. Congress subsequently enacted these recommendations. Thacher also drafted rules for the Supreme Court which were aimed at expediting proceedings in criminal cases. These rules were adopted with amendments.

After resigning as Solicitor General in May 1933, Thacher returned to Simpson, Thacher, and Bartlett in New York, where he became a leader of the Fusion movement which was instrumental in Fiorello La Guardia's mayoral victory of 1933. In 1935 Mayor La Guardia appointed Thacher chairman of the New York City Charter Revision Commission. Under Thacher's chairmanship the commission drafted a new charter which was adopted in November 1936. In January 1943, La Guardia appointed Thacher as the Corporation Counsel of New York City, and in May of the same year, Governor Thomas E. Dewey appointed him to the New York State Court of Appeals. Elected to a full term on the Court of Appeals in November of 1943, Thacher served on the bench until 1949 when he resumed his association with Simpson, Thacher, and Bartlett.

Among his other activities, Thacher was a Fellow of the Yale Corporation (1931-1949), a trustee of the Taft School and New York Public Library, a member of the Council of the American Law Institute, and a director of the Boyce Thompson Institute and the Commonwealth Fund.

Judge Thacher died on November 12, 1950, in New York City.