Long Rail - Top

(l to r) Justices Nicholas P. Papadakos, James T. McDermott, Rolf Larsen, Chief Justice Robert N.C. Nix Jr., Justices John P. Flaherty Jr., Stephen A. Zappala, and Juanita Kidd Stout.

Chief Justice Nix was the first African-American Chief Justice on any state's high court. Justice Kidd Stout was the first African-American woman to sit on any state's high court.

Justice Juanita Kidd Stout was the first African-American woman elected as a judge in Pennsylvania and after an appointment by Governor Robert Casey Sr. in 1988, became the first African-American woman to serve as a justice on any high court in the country.

Philadelphia's City Council renamed the criminal court facility the Justice Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice in 2012.

Justice William B. Linn was first elected to the Superior Court in 1920, eventually being elected as a justice in 1932.

(l to r) Justices Robert N.C. Nix Jr., Samuel J. Roberts, Michael J. Eagan, Chief Justice Benjamin R. Jones, Justices Henry X. O'Brien, Thomas W. Pomeroy Jr., and Louis L. Manderino. All but Justices Pomeroy and Manderino would eventually serve as Chief Justices.

The Court pictured in 1959 in the Philadelphia Consultation Room.

Seated (l to r): Justice John C. Bell Jr., Chief Justice Charles Alvin Jones, Justice Michael A. Musmanno

Standing (l to r): Justices Curtis Bok, Benjamin R. Jones, Herbert Cohen, and Thomas D. McBride

A post card of the Harrisburg courtroom in 1906 as colorized by an unknown artist.

The Violet Oakley Murals were not installed until 1927. Ms. Oakley asked, and was granted permission by, the Court to change the color scheme of the courtroom to fit her artistic vision.

Can you help identify this man and this picture's relevance to the court's history? Contact us.

The Harrisburg Courtroom in 1972.

The walls surrounding Violet Oakley's murals were painted multiple times since the installation since 1927.

In 1982, Speaker Matthew J. Ryan and soon-to-be Speaker K. Leroy Irvis established the Captiol Preservation Committee and the courtroom walls decorated in style matching Oakley's original vision.

For there conservation efforts, the Legislative Office Building and South Office Building are named after Ryan and Irvis, respectively.

The Court in March 1929.

(l to r): Justices Sylvester B. Sadler, Alexander Simpson Jr., Robert S. Frazer, Chief Justice Robert von Moschzisker, Justices Emory A. Walling, John W. Kephart, and William I. Schaffer.

Can you help identify this man and this picture's relevance to the court's history? Contact us.

Detail of Pennsylvania’s Coat of Arms hanging in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania’s courtroom at Independence Hall. Painted in 1785 by George Rutter.

" To Justice John W. Kephart

From H. Edgar Barnes

September 30th, 1935."

Edward Trumbull painted the Commonwealth's Coat of Arms behind the Pittsburgh Courtroom's bench in 1923.

Because of his work decorating the courtroom's ceiling in 1917, Trumbull was given the commission to decorate the first-floor entrance of the K. Leroy Irvis Office Building in 1921.