Levin Claude Bailey (c. 1892 – June 8, 1952)[1] [2] was a justice of the Maryland Court of Appeals from 1943 to 1944.[3]
Born in Quantico, Maryland, Bailey attended St. John's College and received has law degree from the University of Maryland Law School in 1913.[1] He served in the United States Army Reserve during World War I, achieving the rank of captain.[4] Bailey served for various periods as Salisbury city solicitor and as a Wicomico County, Maryland, prosecutor. Bailey later entered private practice, forming the firm of Miles, Bailey, Williams & Clark, where he remained until 1943, when Governor Herbert O'Conor appointed Bailey chief judge of the state's First Judicial Circuit. Under Maryland Law at the time, this also made him a member of the state's high court. Bailey remained on the high court until 1944,[1] when an amendment to the state constitution changed the composition of the court and removed appointed judges in favor of elected judges.[5] Governor O'Conor then commissioned Bailey to continue as a judge of the circuit court,[5] where Bailey thereafter remained until his death.[1]
Bailey married Irma Aurelia Porter of Portsmouth, Virginia, with whom he had a son, James Porter.[1] Bailey died unexpectedly from a heart attack at his home in Salisbury, Maryland, at the age of 60.[1] [2] Following his death, a portrait of Bailey was installed in the law library of the Wicomico County Circuit Court.[6]