Today in Supreme Court History: October 16, 1898

10/16/1898: Justice William O. Douglas's birthday.

Justice William O. Douglas

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Charlotte Harbor & N. Ry. Co. v. Welles, 260 U.S. 8 (decided October 16, 1922): Florida Legislature can ratify county’s ultra vires creation of new bridge district which overlapped existing district (the effect of which was to add a toll to an existing bridge)

Bitter v. United States, 389 U.S. 15 (decided October 16, 1967): mail fraud defendant, who had been on time at every appearance, was 37 minutes late in returning from a recess. So the judge stuck him in a jail 40 miles away for the rest of the trial, denying repeated requests from counsel for release. Trial resulted in a conviction, which the Court overturns because of violation of right to counsel.

Coleman v. Alabama, 389 U.S. 22 (decided October 16, 1967): fact that no black had ever served on a grand jury (and few on petit juries) was prima facie case of violation of Equal Protection which State failed to rebut (conviction of John “Big Time” Coleman was for murder of a white man, John D. “Screwdriver” Johnson; so Coleman’s motion for a new trial was granted; no word on what happened on retrial) (every man in Alabama had a nickname in those days)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Where is a birthday more important than Coleman v. Alabama?

In the clingerverse!

(Captcrises has stomped these guys so thoroughly that the reputations of Blackman and Barnett now resemble captcrises' soles.)

[The Margrave of Azilia]

William Douglas' birthday should really be celebrated on July 4, because his awesomeness generated penumbras and emanations making Independence Day his true birthday.

[John F. Carr]

Imma let you finish, captcrisis, but William O. Douglas was the most liberal justice of all time. All time.

[Ridgeway]

I don't know if he is the most liberal, but I'd vote for laziest (both intellectually and otherwise).

[Dan Schiavetta]

John

I don’t understand your typo. But of the (relatively few) unabashed liberals in the Court’s history, I agree that Douglas was the standout. He was also a horrible person and (after about 1955) lazy on the job.

[John F. Carr]

I'm trying to rewrite Blackman's uninformative headlines in the style to appeal to kids these days. You know the younger generation with their Walkmans and space pens, clickbait and memes. Like you are trying to turn the threads into genuine content about the Supreme Court. Don't take these comments of mine too seriously.

[CJColucci]

Late in life and in dicey health, Douglas married a woman around 30 years his junior. His doctor reportedly told him that sex with his young wife could be fatal. Supposedly, he said: "If she dies, she dies."

[Drbusybody]

Justice Douglas was the first Justice to have been divorced. (His successor John Paul Stevens is the only other Justice to have been divorced.) His third and fourth wives were each more than 40 years his junior. He met his third wife while she was writing her senior thesis about him.

[Gandydancer]

The age of consent is the age of consent. Of the reasons to think poorly of Douglas his penchant for younger wives doesn't make my list.

[Dan Schiavetta]

No but his serial adultery should. Once, when his current wife visited him in his office, his girlfriend (and future wife) had to hide in the closet.

[F.D. Wolf]

Douglas was prominently mentioned as either a presidential or vice-presidential candidate in the elections of 1940, 1944, and 1948.

Douglas was a favorite of Eastern liberals, and while it was still unknown if President Franklin Roosevelt would seek a third term in 1940, his name was probably the most mentioned in the liberal press as a worthy successor to the great FDR. After it was clear Roosevelt would seek a third term, speculation turned to Douglas as the number-two man on the ticket. Roosevelt had fallen out with John Nance Garner, the Vice President during his first two terms over several issues, including Roosevelt's court-packing scheme. Roosevelt wanted someone more in step with the progressive wing of his party, and his first choice was his good friend "Wild Bill" Douglas. Party leaders, however, felt that Douglas was too unknown, and Roosevelt eventually picked his Agriculture Secretary, Henry Wallace,

By time of 1944 election, Roosevelt was in visibly poor health. Many Washington insiders suspected he would not survive a fourth term, and several individuals openly campaigned to be his running mate, though Roosevelt only seriously considered two: Bill Douglas and Harry Truman. Additionally, Wallace wanted to keep his job as VP, but party leaders now saw him as a drag on the ticket, viewed as too left-wing and not particularly likable. Roosevelt gave Wallace some tepid support, such as issuing a statement that if he were a convention delegate, he would vote for Wallace. However, he also sent a letter to DNC Chairman Robert Hannegan stating that he would be pleased with either Truman or Douglas, but would leave the choice to the convention.

Douglas was publicly silent concerning the swirling debate, neither claiming nor disavowing interest in the job, to the consternation of many, including his fellow Justices. Douglas likely wanted the job, but realized it would be unseemly to actively campaign for it while remaining on the Court. Some actively worked the convention floor for Douglas, but the Truman faction was more seasoned in campaigning. After the first ballot, Wallace slightly led Truman, but Truman won the nomination on the second ballot.

After Interior Secretary Harold Ickes resigned on February 15, 1946, President Truman offered the position to Douglas. Douglas stated he was interested but needed some time to consider it. On February 20, the New York Times reported that Douglas would imminently resign from the Court to become Interior Secretary. Chief Justice Harlan Stone pled with Douglas to remain on the Court, and, on February 22, Douglas wrote to Truman, officially declining the position. Truman would also offer Douglas the VP slot for his 1948 campaign, but Douglas declined, saying he wished to stay on the Court. Many of Douglas' friends (and Truman himself) suspected there was more to Douglas' decision, namely, the view of practically the whole country that Truman would lose the 1948 election.

Even into the 1950s, the media would continue to speculate that Douglas had political ambitions. In 1951, Douglas issued a public statement that the United States should recognize Red China. An angry President Truman responded to him in a blunt letter: "I am sorry that a Justice of the Supreme Court has been willing to champion the cause of a bunch of murderers in a public statement. You have missed the boat on three different occasions, if you wanted to get into politics." Later that year, Douglas would write a letter to Truman expressing his desire to make the Court his lifetime career. Douglas would never again seriously consider political office.

[F.D. Wolf]

Most of that is from "I Ain't Runnin'", Chapter 20 of James F. Simon's Independent Journey: The Life of William O. Douglas (1980).

Also, a bit from Eliot Goldman, Justice William O. Douglas: The 1944 Vice Presidential Nomination and His Relationship with Roosevelt, an Historical Perspective, 12 Presidential Stud. Q. 377 (1982).

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I'm going to take a wild guess and suppose you didn't read his book.

[John F. Carr]

1967 was before the rise of the modern administrative classifications that are the main target of DB's book. We are talking almost entirely about people descended from West African slaves, sharing a relatively uniform cultural history and considered all of one kind by the folks in charge of the South.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I read it, it's quite brief, suitable for anyone's attention span.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Racial distinctions are pretty much arbitrary, but the government acts as if they are relevant to the granting or denial of government favors, thus harming real people.

Like Alabama with the Coleman trial.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Because Alabama politicians competed with each other to see who could be more racist against blacks, and the Court need only take the state's own elected officials at their word to see that they were acting in accordance with their announced policy?

[Kazinski]

Surely you don't think.Alabama officials a
were consulting Federal regulations when the try to determine a jurors race?

In fact I don't think any such official classifications existed at the time, they either went with.an eyeball test or a one drop test.

It is kind of humorous how racial classification theory evolved though. A few years ago when I was employed at the City of Seattle I took some mandatory DEI training. The first day of training taught us that racial classifications are completely arbitrary and an artificial construct. The second day taught us that race is extremely important, and whatever race we are considered controls almost everything about who we are.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"Where’s that in the record?"

You can judicially notice the sun in the sky, and you can judicially notice that Alabama in 1964 was a Jim Crow state.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Oh, 1964 was when it was remanded the first time, so the trial would have been before 1964.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Would you put it something like this?

"While highly imperfect, the standard racial and ethnic categories are generally good enough for their original intended main purpose: monitoring discrimination by the government, government contractors, mortgage lenders, educational institutions, employers, and so on against minority groups that have been subject to the most severe and pervasive discrimination."

(David F. Bernstein, Classified: The Untold Story of Racial Classification in America, Nashville, Bombardier Books, 2022, p. 172)

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I can easily explain that – it’s hard to figure out what someone else’s straw man is claiming – since straw men are imaginary beings, it’s hard to reconstruct how the straw man thinks and how to rebut him.

And I see nothing wrong with saying that Alabama being a Jim Crow state was in the early 60s something which, in the language of the rule, can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Wow, you sure seem annoyed to be caught with egg on your face.

You’re lashing out even more after being proven wrong.

“a de facto way when not being de jure policy”

It was Jim Crow all the way down. If you can't take judicial notice of something as plain as noonday, so much the worse for the profession.

How thin do you have to slice the salami to make “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” *not* de jure policy?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“(just not grand juries)”

Yeah, other than that minor parenthetical point…

"local governments’ practices as de facto discriminatory"

No, it was Jim Crow racism.

You should read the book, if any of it survives after you straw-manned it to death.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You've avoided *my* questions:

(a) why are you such a doofus?

(b) why don't you read the books you criticize?

[Krychek_2]

Queen, to a racist there are only two classifications: white and non-white. Box A or Box B. I was once in the room when a white nationalist was asked which race he thought Tiger Woods’ children should marry. His response was he didn’t care so long as they didn’t marry whites.

[Mr. Bumble]

So Black women who decry successful Black men who date or marry White women are racist?

[Michael P]

Yes, but according to him, it's not racist if they complain about Black men marrying Asian women.