Robert Nelson Cornelius Nix Jr. (July 13, 1928 – August 23, 2003) served as the chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court from 1984 to 1996.

[1] Nix was the first African-American Chief Justice of any state's highest court, and the first African American to be elected to statewide office in Pennsylvania.

[1] He was the son of Robert N. C. Nix Sr., the first of Pennsylvania's African American Representative in the United States Congress and a powerhouse among city Democrats.

[7] After graduating from law school, Nix spent 2 years serving in the United States Army before becoming a Deputy Attorney General in 1956.

[5] He served as a member of the mayor's advisory committee on civil rights in 1963, where he raised questions about racial discrimination in city government hiring, and pushed for action against slumlords.

[2][6] Following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Nix commented that unless the nation made a commitment to racial equality, it faced "an internal conflagration that will reduce it to ashes.

[5] Nix unsuccessfully sought a new judge and a change of venue for the trial, contending that Lane, a former Pullman porter and Democratic committeeman, had been unfairly singled out for prosecution on charges far more minor than those the other magistrates faced.

[2] He was appointed an associate justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court by Governor Milton Shapp in 1971, and was elected the following year.

In 1966, when running for election as a judge on the Philadelphia court of common pleas, Nix was criticized for continuing to be on his father's payroll as a congressional assistant, despite working as an attorney in private practice, and for collecting money each month from Congress in rent for his father's use of space in Nix's office.

[5] After stepping down in 1996, Justice Nix said his difficulties with Larsen were "regrettable, but we were able to eliminate that and restore confidence in the judicial system.