majority in the population to vote against him, but only after he had prosecuted them or their friends and relatives. Voelker also hated campaigning. Voelker once described the caseload from his tenure as prosecutor as involving "three grand larcenies, two auto thefts, three burglaries, a brace of bastard cases, one indecent exposure, one assault with intent to murder, two wife desertions and one dog-tired prosecutor". After defeat, Voelker re-entered private practice. In August and September 1952, he represented the defense in People v. Coleman Peterson. Peterson was a veteran of both World War II and the Korean War who was stationed in Big Bay during the summer of 1952 and accused of murder in the shooting death of Maurice Chenoweth, a local bar owner. The case "made" his "reputation as a defense attorney". The defense centered on a rare form of the insanity defense called "irresistible impulse". Until the Peterson case, the "irresistible impulse" defense had not been used in Michigan since People v. Durfee in 1886. The trial lasted seven days with a total of 31 witnesses: 26 for the prosecution and five for the defense. The jury deliberated for four hours before pronouncing Peterson not guilty by reason of insanity. Voelker's only payment as the defense attorney was the murder weapon. Voelker's business slowed after the Peterson trial, and by 1953 he closed his office and worked from home. In 1954, he ran for the United States Congress. In 1956, he was interviewed as a possible candidate to fill a vacancy on the Michigan Supreme Court. At the time, Governor G. Mennen Williams thought it was appropriate to revive a tradition of having a justice from the Upper Peninsula on the court. When asked why he wanted to serve, Voelker replied, "Because I have spent my life on fiction and fishing, and I need the money". He was appointed the 74th justice of the Michigan Supreme Court by Williams to fill Emerson R. Boyles's vacant seat on the court in December 1956, and Voelker was confirmed in an election in 1957 to fill out the remainder of Boyles' term. He was then reelected to a full term in 1958. During his tenure on the court, Voelker wrote over 100 opinions, both majority opinions and dissents. In 1958, he authored what was originally the dissent in the case People v. Hildabridle. That case centered around a nudist colony near