Curtis Grover Shake

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American judge (1887–1978)

Curtis Grover Shake (July 14, 1887 – September 11, 1978), was a jurist , politician, author, and a member of the Indiana Senate who served as a justice of the Indiana Supreme Court from January 4, 1938, to January 7, 1945, serving as chief justice three separate times (1939, 1941, and 1944). During his career, he was the presiding civilian judge over the IG Farben trial , one of the Nuremberg trials the United States convened at Nuremberg , Germany, from 1947 to 1948 following World War II .

A native of Knox County, Indiana , Shake attended Vincennes University for two years and earned a law degree from Indiana University in 1910. He initially established a law practice in Bicknell, Indiana , but relocated his family and law practice to the county seat at Vincennes in 1916. Shake was elected as a Democrat to represent Knox and Daviess counties in the Indiana Senate in 1926, but lost his bid to become Indiana Attorney General in 1928. Shake presided as a Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court for 7 years; refusing to run for re-election in 1945. Between 1938 and 1946, Shake was also involved at the national level in mediating labor disputes, including service on six presidential emergency boards charged with settling railroad strikes.

In 1947, Shake was appointed presiding judge over the Farben trial at Nuremberg. News reporters harshly criticized the relatively light sentences imposed on those found guilty of war crimes. Years later Shake remarked that although he accepted the legitimacy of the tribunals, he thought an impartial trial from neutral countries using neutral judges would have been preferable. After his return to the United States in 1948, Shake continued to practice law in Vincennes, where he was also a longtime member of Vincennes University's board of trustees from 1923 to 1966. Shake was elected to the Indiana Academy in 1975 for his contributions to Indiana and the nation.

Early life and education

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Curtis Grover Shake, the son of Arminda and Daniel Shake, was born in Monroe City , Harrison Township , Knox County, Indiana , on July 14, 1887. Daniel was a farmer and music teacher; Arminda worked as a midwife .

Shake completed eighth grade in Knox County's public schools. In 1903, because there were no public high schools in the area, Shake began studies at Vincennes University , where he attended classes for two years to earn a teacher's license. At Vincennes he was a member of Sigma Pi fraternity .

Shake taught in a one-room schoolhouse for two years before deciding to pursue a law career. He moved to Vincennes, Indiana , in the spring of 1907 and began law school at Indiana University in Bloomington that fall. Shake, an avid storyteller, later recalled that while he was living in Vincennes, Jacob Gimbel, owner of a Vincennes department store that later became Gimbels in New York, offered to pay for his law studies at IU as long as he agreed to help another student in a similar manner in the future. Shake agreed to Gimbel's proposal.

Shake earned a law degree from Indiana University in 1910. Among his classmates were Paul V. McNutt , a future governor of Indiana ; Sherman Minton , a future associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court ; and Wendell Willkie , the Republican Party 's nominee in the 1940 presidential election . Shake also met his first wife, Anna Selesky, a Czech immigrant and a fellow law student, while attending Indiana University. Shake and Anna married in June 1911; their son, Gilbert, was born the following year.

Career

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Early years

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Shake established a law practice in Bicknell, Indiana , following his graduation from law school in 1910. After six years in Bicknell, where Shake served as city attorney and as Knox County's deputy prosecuting attorney, he moved his family and law practice to Vincennes in 1916 and formed a law partnership with Joseph W. Kimmel.

While living in Vincennes, Shake also held positions as city attorney, U.S. commissioner for the southern Indiana judicial district, and Knox County attorney.

In 1926 Shake was elected as a Democrat to represent Knox and Daviess counties in the Indiana Senate . Shake was an active state senator who coauthored the Lindley-Shake-Johnson law that reduced tax assessments on Indiana farmland.

In 1928 Shake became the Democratic Party's nominee for Indiana Attorney General , but lost the race. A week before the election, John Rabb Emison, a Vincennes lawyer, announced at a Republican Party gathering in Indianapolis that Shake was a former member of the Ku Klux Klan . Emison asserted that Shake had joined Knox County Klan Number 75 on September 30, 1924, and produced a membership book to support the claim. Emison also proclaimed that the Klan had provided Shake with support during his campaign for the Indiana Senate in 1926, but Shake had discontinued paying his membership dues when the Klan organization became unpopular.

It is not known with certainty whether or not Shake was a Klan member. Shake never fully denied Klan membership in his speeches, but he did label the claims "insinuations and false charges." Newspapers of the time did not report that he refuted Emison's claims. Shake blamed his loss on [New York Governor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_New_York "

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