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Former Maine Chief Justice Vincent McKusick Dies

Former Maine Supreme Court Justice Vincent McKusick has died, at age 93. The Portland Press Herald reports that McKusick died Wednesday at Legacy Memory Care in Falmouth.

Born in Parkman, Maine, McKusick graduated from Bates College in Lewiston, then served in the Army during World War II, participating in the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

After the war, McKusick went back to school, earning bachelor's and master's degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Techology, and a degree from Harvard law School.

After clerking for Second Circuit Chief Judge Learned Hand and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, McKusick worked as a lawyer at the Portland firm of Pierce Atwood. In 1977, Gov. James Longley appointed him to serve as chief justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court - the first such appointment directly from the bar since 1820, the paper reports.

McKusick spent 14 years on the high court. He retired in 1992 and returned to Pierce Atwood. Later, he was appointed a "special master" by the U.S. Supreme Court on three occasions, and handled original jurisdiction cases between states, according to the publication.