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Biography
Sam Blakeley Hall Jr. (January 11, 1924 – April 10, 1994) was an American lawyer, politician, and judge. He was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Texas's 1st congressional district from 1976 to 1985 and a federal judge of the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Texas from 1985 until his death in 1994.
Born and raised in Marshall, Texas, Hall attended the College of Marshall where he met his future wife Mary Madeleine Segal. After graduating from the College of Marshall with an Associate of Arts degree in 1942, he attended the University of Texas before enlisting in the United States Army Air Corps to serve during World War II. On returning to Marshall after World War II, he married Mary Madeleine Segal and graduated with a bachelor's degree from Baylor University in 1946 and an LL.B. from Baylor Law School in 1948. After being admitted to the bar he returned to Marshall to practice law, where he was in private practice from 1948 to 1976.
Hall was unsuccessful in an attempt to receive the Democratic Party nomination for Congress in the 1st district in 1962. He served as chairman of Marshall's board of education from 1972 to 1976.
In 1976 Hall won a special election for the U.S. House after the death of incumbent Wright Patman. He was reelected five times and served on the Judiciary and Veterans' Affairs committees.
On April 17, 1985, Hall was nominated by President Ronald Reagan to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas vacated by Joe J. Fisher. The move was engineered by Republican Senator Phil Gramm as a way to demonstrate southern support for Reagan's administration—with many conservative Democratic areas of the southern states trending towards Republicans, Gramm and other observers assumed a Republican would win Hall's seat in a special election.
Hall was quickly confirmed by the Senate on May 3, 1985, and subsequently resigned his seat in Congress to be sworn in as judge, receiving his commission on May 10, 1985. (Gramm's ploy to have Hall succeeded by a Republican failed when the special election was won by Democrat Jim Chapman, who defeated Republican Edd Hargett.)
Hall served on the bench until his death in Marshall on April 10, 1994. He was buried at New Grover Cemetery in Marshall.
The Sam B. Hall Federal Courthouse in Marshall was later renamed in his honor.