Today in Supreme Court History: January 20, 1953

1/20/1953: President Eisenhower takes the inaugural oath on January 20. He would make five appointments to the Supreme Court: Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Justices John Marshall Harlan II, William J. Brennan, Charles Evans Whittaker, and Potter Stewart.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower made five appointments to the Supreme Court

 

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Nashville Milk Co. v. Carnation Co., 355 U.S. 373 (decided January 20, 1958): Robinson-Patman Act (prohibiting underselling to destroy competition by use of means unavailable to competition) does not provide private right of action; it's not an "antitrust" statute as defined by the Clayton Act and therefore Clayton remedy of treble damages is not available

Hunter v. Erickson, 393 U.S. 385 (decided January 20, 1969): City ordinance allowing housing discrimination based on race is not saved from Fourteenth Amendment attack by the fact that by its terms it wouldn't take effect until the voters approve it (which they did)

Beal v. Missouri Pacific R.R. Corp., 312 U.S. 45 (decided January 20, 1941): civil lawsuit can't stop criminal prosecutions (here, railroads facing prosecution under Nebraska's Full Train Crew Law claimed that it would have been financially ruinous to comply with it) (statute had been in force since 1929; from the opinion it appears that railroads were hiring dual-role black workers at lower wages than white)

Kansas v. Carr, 577 U.S. 108 (decided January 20, 2016): jury considering death penalty doesn't have to be instructed that mitigating factors don't have to be proved beyond reasonable doubt (then how they hell are they supposed to know that???)

Department of the Army v. Blue Fox, Inc., 525 U.S. 255 (decided January 20, 1999): subcontractor barred by sovereign immunity from asserting lien on proceeds that were never paid to it by general contractor and still held by Army

[bevis the lumberjack]

Trump is the anti-Midas. Everything he touches turns to shit.

The guy is simply poison and I don’t understand how some people can’t see that.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Dammit. Posted on the wrong story. I should establish a rule - no posting before 9 am.

[Frank Drackman]

Good thing you're not POTUS, probably leave the Nuke-ular codes (HT Jimmuh Cartuh) in your Garage.

[RENATA the rational]

If I were you I would not have the self-kissing judgment that because you don't understand then the millions must be stupid and not you

[CJColucci]

Approximately half the population is below average.

[SRG]

I can't describe Potter Stewart but I know him when I see him

[Bob from Ohio]

A very bad record for Ike. Brennan is a bottom 5 justice and Warren a bottom 5 chief justice.

Stewart had his moments. Only Harlan was a good pick overall.

[Dilan Esper]

To the contrary, Brennan has a claim to being the single greatest SCOTUS justice in history. He was better than anyone at assembling majorities and moving the law.

[Dan Schiavetta]

It is amazing how, on an increasingly conservative Court, Brennan continued to find ways to get to five votes. He was a coalition builder, the opposite of Douglas (on the left) or Scalia (on the right).

[Dilan Esper]

Right. Those are actually the exact two Justices to contrast him with- two guys who had enormous reputations while also having enormous problems being able to count to 5.

A lot of ideologues are interested in the Supreme Court, and they want ideological champions. They love fiery dissents that tear the other side a new one. But fiery dissents are not law. The way you make law is by forming coalitions on the court. It isn't flashy and doesn't give people the ideological satisfaction, but it delivers victories.

[Dan Schiavetta]

That's not only how to build law, but that's how to get through politics, and life.

[F.D. Wolf]

What? Of all the terms one might use to describe William Brennan, “consenus builder” would not be one of them. He did not like to compromise and became more hardened in his attitude over his long tenure on the Court. He acquired a reputation as a dissenter, particularly as the Court moved to the right under Chief Justice Burger. In 1986, he delivered a speech at Hastings College of Law he titled “in Defense of Dissents” in which he stated, “Of my fifty-six opinions last year, forty-two were dissents.” (1). He seemed quite proud of the fact. Of his merits opinions, 471 were dissents, 415 were majorities, and 219 were concurrences (2). And that’s not even counting the 1900+ times he dissented from a denial to stay an execution, denials of cert, etc. That’s hardly the resume of a great assembler of majorities.

1. William J. Brennan, Jr., In Defense of Dissents, 37 Hastings L.J. 427, 427 (1986).

2. Rory K. Little, Reading Justice Brennan: Is There a “Right” to Dissent? 50 Hastings L.J. 683, 683 n. 2 (1999).

[Dilan Esper]

Even late William Brennan put together opinions like Metro Broadcasting v. FCC. But obviously Brennan was dissenting more in later years than he did in the past, so he was inclined to defend dissents.

Nonetheless, over his career, nobody in Supreme Court history was better at counting to 5, and he engaged in a ton of pragmatism to do it, whatever he said in that late career article.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Aren't we discussing different phases of his career? Building coalitions would be easier in the Sixties, man, with Warren and Douglas and that crowd, than in the eighties, dude.

[Bob from Ohio]

"moving the law"

Into the Grand Canyon.

Its the results of his work that makes him terrible.

[Sarcastr0]

Bob's only definition of merit is 'agrees with Bob.'

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Bob is the kind of guy who makes kicking the everlasting shit out of conservatives in the culture war enjoyable, rewarding, important, and admirable for the modern American liberal-libertarian mainstream.

These clingers can't be replaced quickly enough.

[Frank Drackman]

Surprised Warren didn't try to beat Truman in 48' "Earl Warren: He kept California safe from it's own Citizens!!!"

[F.D. Wolf]

Eisenhower also appointed Warren Burger and Harry Blackmun to the D.C. Circuit and Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, respectively, both of whom would later be elevated to the Supreme Court by President Richard Nixon.

Eisenhower appointed G. Harrold Carswell to a district judgeship in the Northern District of Florida. Nixon would later elevate Carswell to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1970, Nixon would nominate Carswell to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the resignation of Justice Abe Fortas, but the Senate rejected the nomination by a vote of 45-51; the Senate had previously rejected Nixon’s nomination of Clement Haynesworth to the same position by a vote of 45-55. Nixon became the first president since Grover Cleveland to have two consecutive Supreme Court nominees rejected by the Senate. Nixon's next pick, Harry Blackmun, would be confirmed 94-0.

Carswell’s tenure on the Fifth Circuit was brief. He resigned his seat in April 1970 after a little more than 10 months on the job to run for the open U.S. Senate seat in Florida, an election he ultimately lost. Carswell would return to private practice. In 1976, Carswell was charged with lascivious behavior after making homosexual advances toward an undercover police officer in the men’s room of a Tallahassee shopping mall, ultimately pleading guilty to battery. In 1979, in another incident, he was beaten and robbed by a man he had invited back to his Atlanta motel room. Carswell, who was married, died of lung cancer in 1992. His widow, Virginia, passed away in 2009.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

After the hassle of rejecting Haynesworth and Carswell, the Senate was tired and would have confirmed a potted plant. Unfortunately, Nixon nominated Blackmun instead.

And Haynesworth doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Carswell. Haynesworth was Nixon's attempt to find a classy jurist from the South; Carswell was Nixon's attempt to...I'm not sure, pick a white Southerner out of the phone book.

[ragebot]

"After he was no longer president, Eisenhower purportedly said, “I have made two mistakes, and they are both sitting on the Supreme Court.” Or that Warren’s nomination was “the biggest damn-fool mistake I ever made,” or that his biggest mistake was “the appointment of that dumb son-of-a-bitch Earl Warren.” Historians argue whether or not Eisenhower ever said any of the above. But the statements reflect how Eisenhower and many others felt."

https://www.lawweekly.org/col/2018/10/17/ikes-mistake-the-accidental-creation-of-the-warren-court