Edward Mansfield (judge)

Edward Mansfield is a justice on the Iowa Supreme Court. Mansfield graduated from Harvard College in 1978 and Yale Law School in 1982. After law school Mansfield clerked for Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit before entering private practice. In 1997, Mansfield started teaching as an adjunct professor at Drake University and has served as the chairperson of the board of directors of Goodwill Industries of Central Iowa. Mansfield joined the Iowa Court of Appeals in 2009.
Mansfield was one of three justices appointed by Governor Terry Branstad in 2011. In November 2010, Iowa voters had removed all three justices seeking reelection in response to the court unanimously legalizing same-sex marriage in Varnum v. Brien.
In 2012, Mansfield authored an opinion for the court which found a dentist did not commit gender discrimination when, at the insistence of his wife, he fired a dental assistant to whom he was sexually attracted. In 2016, Mansfield dissented when the Court found that the Iowa Constitution categorically prohibited life without parole for juveniles who committed first degree murder.
In September 2016, Mansfield was named as a possible Supreme Court nominee by president-elect Donald Trump.