Today in Supreme Court History: October 1, 1924

10/1/1924: Chief Justice Rehnquist's birthday.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

United States v. Carll, 105 U.S. 611 (decided October 1, 1881): can't convict someone passing a counterfeit currency when the indictment didn't mention that he knew it was counterfeit

United States v. Peck, 102 U.S. 64 (decided October 1, 1880): parol evidence (i.e., evidence outside the four corners of the contract) admissible to show that contract for providing wood and hay to army contemplated that hay would be cut in the area (supplier was unable to do that and government had others provide it from far away and charged him for the extra expense)

[Drbusybody]

Jimmy Carter was also born that day. Not that anyone here cares, so was pianist Roger Williams.

[Syd Henderson]

It’s also Yang Chen-Ning’s 100th birthday. He and Tsung-Dao Lee* shared the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics for discovering parity violation in the weak interaction, which I believe is still the shortest waiting time for a Nobel Prize in the sciences. Wu Chien-Shiung, who proved it experimentally, should also have shared the prize, although Lee and Yang designed the experiment. Lee and Yang are still alive. Wu died in 1997.

*Lee is now an American Citizen, and apparently puts his family name at the end.