associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1923–30).

Sanford was admitted to the Tennessee bar in 1888 and began his law practice in Knoxville. His public career began in 1907 when President Theodore Roosevelt named him assistant attorney general. The following year he was appointed judge of the U.S. District Court for the middle and eastern districts of Tennessee. In 1923 President Warren G. Harding named Sanford to the U.S. Supreme Court.

A number of his important opinions dealt with the federal Bankruptcy Act and with the question of freedom of expression. He wrote the celebrated opinion in Liberty Warehousing v. Grannis, which declared that a federal court could not issue a declaratory judgment even if such a proceeding is authorized under state law. His most noted opinion was in the “Pocket Veto” case, in which he ended a 140-year-old dispute by ruling that the president has 10 calendar, rather than legislative, days to act on a bill before the adjournment of Congress.