John Joseph Francis[1] (June 19, 1903 – July 5, 1984) was an American Democratic Party politician and jurist who served as an associate justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court from 1957 until his retirement in 1972.
[5] One of his running mates in the 1940 legislative contest was Peter W. Rodino, who would go on to serve 40 years in Congress, 14 of them as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.
In 1948, Governor Alfred Driscoll, a Republican, nominated Francis to serve as a Judge of the Essex County Court of Common Pleas.
[8] In 1960, Francis wrote a unanimous opinion in Henningsen v. Bloomfield Motors, Inc., where the court ruled that automobile dealers and manufacturers were liable for defective cars despite a standard warranty intended to absolve them.
He was also the author of a unanimous 1966 decision that the state could not seek the death penalty in the retrial of a convicted murderer who had already received a sentence of life in prison.