[2] He returned to the United States in July 1903, and in October was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt as an associate justice of the New Mexico Territorial Supreme Court.

[3] Pope was the first judge appointed to the new United States District Court for New Mexico, after it attained statehood on January 6, 1912.

[3] One of Pope's decisions on the federal bench was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Sandoval, 231 U.S. 28 (1913).

The issue was whether an 1897 federal law that criminalized the sale of alcohol to Indians applied to the Pueblos in the state of New Mexico.

Pope had ruled that the Pueblos were ordinary citizens living on private property, and did not fit into the classes of Indians defined in the 1897 law.

[6] In reversing, the Supreme Court held that the Pueblos were a dependent people, which Congress had made clear in the Enabling Act providing for New Mexico's statehood.