In the Name of Justice: Portrait of a 'Cowboy' Judge

Christopher English is a professor of history at Memorial University of
Newfoundland and the author of A Cautious Beginning: The Emergence of
Newfoundland’s Supreme Court of Judicature in 1791–92.

James Valentine Hogarth Milvain became the first Native-born chief
justice of the trial division of the Supreme Court of Alberta in 1968
and served until 1979. His 65-year legal career took him from a
small-town apprenticeship in Lethbridge, to a two-man practice in
Calgary during World War II, to the bench in 1959, and, after his
retirement, to a consultancy with a large corporate firm in Calgary.

A product of his early training and career, Milvain remained a strict
conservative in the law and in politics: paternally solicitous of the
ordinary person, a proponent of the efficacy of punishment as a
principle of sentencing, a supporter of the lash and of capital
punishment, a man of “strong personal opinions” who “had distinct
views on homosexuals and members of the gay community,” an opponent of
government-funded legal aid and of medicare, and a critic of the Charter
of Rights, which he believed substituted codified law for judicial
discretion. Although some of these views may be explained as typical of
his generation, Milvain’s adherence to principle occasionally bordered
on crankiness; he believed, for example, that playing the stock market
was gambling and in court would wilfully ignore counsel who were
casually attired. That said, his judgments appear to have been fair and
were rarely appealed, and litigant parties and their lawyers appreciated
the speed and clarity of his decisions.

The author of this worshipful biography met his subject late in life
when Milvain had reinvented himself as “Uncle Val,” genial,
considerate, avuncular, and a friend to all. Although the results of
research into law reports, statutes, history books, and the press are
promised, this study is based almost entirely on interviews. All those
quoted characterize Milvain as a friend and a paragon of integrity and
principle; none is in any way critical. Milvain was an intensely private
man who, his son attests, “wouldn’t let you intrude into his
innermost thoughts” (little wonder that he seems to have been most at
ease presiding over his court).

Half the book concerns “the man behind the gown” and Milvain’s
postretirement activities, which offer little of interest. A
professional editor might have spared the reader much repetition and
extraneous information. Milvain as representative of a legal era in the
West is a worthy subject; this presentation, however, is problematic.