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Thomas O. Marshall

American judge (1920–2003)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionOct 20, 2025
Entity authorityQ136540100 ↗
Source-derived summary

Thomas Oliver Marshall Jr. (June 24, 1920 – June 12, 2003) was an American lawyer and judge who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia from 1977 to 1986, and as chief justice from 1986 to 1989.

Early life, education, and military service

Born in Americus, Georgia, he attended Emory University before receiving a Bachelor of Science in engineering from the United States Naval Academy in 1941. He served aboard Navy destroyers in the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of World War II, attaining the rank of lieutenant commander in that conflict, and later"commanded a destroyer in the Korean War". He received the Bronze Star Medal.

He received a law degree from the University of Georgia School of Law in 1948, and entered the practice of law in Americus.

Judicial career

Marshall was elected to the Georgia Superior Court in 1960. In 1962, Marshall notably ruled that there had been "a clear case of election fraud" in the Sumter County state senate race, awarding the election to Carter Marshall.

In 1974, Marshall was elected to the Georgia Court of Appeals, and on June 30, 1977, Governor George Busbee named Marshall to a seat on the state supreme court vacated by the resignation of Justice G. Conley Ingram.

On February 26, 1986, Marshall was named by his colleagues on the state supreme court as the state's new chief justice, succeeding retiring Chief Justice Harold N. Hill.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Thomas O. Marshall” as american judge (1920–2003). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1920, 2003, 1977, 1986—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1920-06-24. The account is most persuasive where Thomas, Marshall and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as american judge (1920–2003). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 20, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q136540100. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1920, 2003, 1977 and 1986.

Critical limits

Overview language is designed for orientation and should not be treated as a substitute for the evidence cited beneath it. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Thomas O. Marshall” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.