William Hardin Davis Fones[1] (October 6, 1917 – December 23, 2010) was an American jurist who served on the state supreme court of Tennessee.
After college he studied law at the University of Tennessee, graduating before the United States entered World War II.
He spent 25 years with the firm of Rosenfield, Borod, Fones, Bogatin & Kremer, leaving in 1971 to assume a circuit court judgeship.
The Democratic slate won the election[4] and Fones was to remain on the court until his retirement in 1990, including service as chief justice.
Other noteworthy decisions expanded the right to sue for negligence, upheld a state open meetings law, threw out Tennessee's death penalty law due to a U.S. Supreme Court decision that had found mandatory death penalties to be unconstitutional, established that judges deciding child custody cases should consider the "best interest of the child," and upheld a ban on the practice of snake handling during religious services.