J. Frank McInnis

Jesse Frank McInnis, known as J. Frank McInnis (January 28, 1886 - January 27, 1959), was a judge of his state's Second Circuit Court of Appeal from Minden in Webster Parish, Louisiana. In 1952, McInnis succeeded Robert F. Kennon of Minden, in the circuit judgeship which Kennon vacated to become governor of Louisiana. Prior to his appeals court service, McInnis served for twenty-two years on the now 26th Judicial District Court.

Biography
The son of Jesse McInnis (1858-1946), McInnis was born on a farm near Castor in Bienville Parish in north Louisiana, where he attended Castor High School. He left the farm at the age of sixteen to come to Minden in 1906, where he worked for more than a decade in mercantile, railroads, and banking. In 1923, McInnis was admitted to the Louisiana bar and began his law practice in Minden. One of his early law partners was another attorney originally from Castor, John T. Campbell (1903-1993), who also for a time was the secretary of the Louisiana State Senate.
On January 1, 1930, Governor Huey Pierce Long, Jr., appointed McInnis, a fellow Democrat, to the new 26th District state court, created in 1926 and based in Benton, the seat of Bossier Parish. After his short-term appointment, McInnis was elected to full terms on the district court in 1930, when he defeated fellow Democrat R. H. Lee in a runoff election. In 1936, he won by 46 votes over opponent Clifford E. Hays, 2,889 (50.4 percent) to 2,843 (49.6 percent). McInnis won again in 1942 and 1948. Some 80 percent of McInnis' criminal court rulings were upheld on appeal. At the time, few criminal cases were appealed.
McInnis was also involved in non-judicial matters. He helped to reorganize the former Bank of Webster during the Great Depression. In 1950, he marked his twentieth anniversary on the court. In 1953, McInnis was named "Citizen of the Year" by the Minden Lions Club.
In December 1953, McInnis retired after a year and a half of service on the circuit court of appeals, having completed Kennon's unexpired term. In February 1954, McInnis joined the Minden law firm of John B. Benton, Jr. (1924-2009), the assistant DA under Louis Padgett, and Enos Carr McClendon, Jr., later a state court judge from 1960 to 1978. He was married to the former Cortez Mixon (November 3, 1889 - December 2, 1947), a native of Cotton Valley in central Webster Parish. The couple resided at 211 Goode Avenue in Minden. McInnis was a Methodist.
Judge McInnis, through his brother John Lawson McInnis, Sr., was an uncle of the Minden businessmen and building contractors, Harry Elwood McInnis, Sr. (1913-2003), and John Lawson McInnis, Jr. (1915-1994). Judge McInnis was a brother-in-law of the banker Clarence C. Fulbright of Pine Bluff, Arkansas, who was married to Mrs. McInnis' sister, Trevanion Mixon Fulbright. Clarence Fulbright was killed in an automobile accident in 1953.

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