Today in Supreme Court History: January 12, 1932

1/12/1932: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes resigns from the Supreme Court.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (decided January 12, 2005): invalidating part of Federal Sentencing Act that empowers judge to find aggravating factors; making increased sentencing dependent on finding of fact means jury must find those facts, and beyond reasonable doubt (here, sentencing judge found facts of greater amount of cocaine than was presented to convicting jury)

Sipuel v. Board of Regents of University of Oklahoma, 332 U.S. 631 (decided January 12, 1948): It’s a denial of Equal Protection for state-run law school to refuse admission to qualified applicant on account of race. A short per curiam opinion, but in my view this case marks the beginning of the civil rights era.

United States v. Windom, 137 U.S. 636 (decided January 12, 1891): federal government can’t stiff contractor to whom it had certified payment by bringing up past claims against him

Illinois v. Wardlow, 528 U.S. 119 (decided January 12, 2000): police could stop and search man who had run upon seeing them in area known for heavy narcotics trafficking (This reminded me of a case that arose near where I was living at the time, United States v. Bayless, 913 F. Supp. 232, 1996, where the judge invalidated the stop: “Residents in this neighborhood tended to regard police officers as corrupt, abusive and violent. Had the men not run when the cops began to stare at them, it would have been unusual.” The judge also pointed out that three supposedly suspicious facts — out-of-state plates, double parking, and being about late at night — are common in that part of Manhattan, which I can testify to also.)

El Al Israel Airlines, Ltd. v. Tsui Yuan Tseng, 525 U.S. 155 (decided January 12, 1999): person improperly searched prior to boarding foreign airline has no claim against the foreign airline, either under local law or Warsaw Convention

[SRG2]

Looking up Sipuel, I found that she was represented at the SC by Thurgood Marshall. When she did go to law school, she had to sit on a chair marked "colored" set apart from the rest of the class, and she had to dine at a separate table.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Oklahoma’s response to this ruling was to create a separate law school for black students, with her as the only student. She refused to attend and took them to court. Incredibly, the Court approved that ridiculous setup (Fisher v. Hurst, 1948, which I commented on here on February 16 last). Again she refused to attend, threatened to sue again, and they finally let her attend their existing law school. As another commenter added, she had a long and successful career (see her Wikipedia page) and in 1992 the governor put her on the Board of Regents of the university that had refused to admit her.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

A great attribute of America is that our bigots do not win over time.

We still have our bigots, but we defeat them. A new batch periodically develops, which is why we have encountered successive waves of intolerance and ignorance throughout our history. But better voices and positions tend to prevail in America -- and our latest batch of bigots seems nothing special.

[Syd Henderson]

That commentator was almost certainly me since I live two or three blocks from her memorial garden. also note that the decision cites the regents not the OU President, George Lynn Cross, who was mostly a good guy in a bad position.

[not guilty]

Thurgood Mashall, as a litigator and field general of the desegregation movement, had perhaps as much impact on twentieth century America as any other person in peacetime.

[Syd Henderson]

My only objection to the Martin Luther King holiday is that Thurgood Marshall might be forgotten though he’s equally worthy. The problem is that he's remembered as the first black Supreme Court Justice, and his biggest contributions were before he was appointed to the Supreme Court.

[John F. Carr]

The essential part of Booker was mandatory sentencing. Judges are still allowed to find aggravating factors.

[John F. Carr]

Double parking and other forms of illegal parking are so common in cities that delivery companies make special arragnements for bulk payment of parking tickets. If cities cared about obedience to parking laws the companies would be kicked out of town after the third ticket in a year.

[Dan Schiavetta]

You can’t not double park in upper Manhattan or the Bronx, at least once in a while.

When we lived in the Bronx I had to hunt around in the early morning hours to find a place not blocked by street sweeping rules, and was within walking distance. Usually I could find a place within four blocks. I had to make sure I didn’t forget where it was.

[SRG2]

The few blocks around the New Balance Armory on 168th street is terrible for parking - between slots reserved for medical personnel, and the world's densest accumulation of fire hydrants...

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

If cities cared about obedience to parking laws the companies would be kicked out of town after the third ticket in a year

But, when customers (residents, visitors, businesses) learned there was no beer to be had, the wholesalers likely would be welcomed back in a day or two.

I am familiar with a beer wholesaler that pays more than $1 million to address traffic tickets each year. If that sounds steep, consider what it would cost to arrange a parking spot for a 12-bay beer truck in a large city — a parking spot every couple of blocks. (In some cities, during some periods, a delivery route might be no longer than a couple of blocks.)

[Krayt]

Are the people happy their government tickets their beer delivery? The people ultimately pay the tickets through beer costs.

Also, when signing up for a summer calc class, I got a ticket but my friend, driving his uncle's minivan with company plates, did not. So there's that, too.

[Noscitur a sociis]

.

(This reminded me of a case that arose near where I was living at the time, United States v. Bayless, 913 F. Supp. 232, 1996, where the judge invalidated the stop: “Residents in this neighborhood tended to regard police officers as corrupt, abusive and violent. Had the men not run when the cops began to stare at them, it would have been unusual.” The judge also pointed out that three supposedly suspicious facts — out-of-state plates, double parking, and being about late at night — are common in that part of Manhattan, which I can testify to also.)

Following this decision, both congress and the Clinton administration made noises suggesting that Judge Baer would be impeached if he didn’t resign. Judge Baer then folded like a cheap suit and I suppressed the evidence. See United States v. Bayless, 921 F.Supp. 211 (1996).

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yes, I remember that, and “folded like a cheap suit” is a good way to put it. IIRC Baer’s father was a judge too. You’d think that he was well trained in how a judge cannot be swayed.

To be fair, it was a different time, with drug crime a huge problem. In 2016 Hillary Clinton got grief for supporting her husband’s "racist" crime law but the truth was it was supported by most black politicians too. And someone pointed out that if people ran every time they saw the police, the police wouldn’t be able to talk to witnesses and do their jobs. But arresting everyone who ran was overreach.

[F.D. Wolf]

Justice Holmes was 90 years, 10 months, and 4 days old when he retired, making him the oldest Supreme Court justice to have served. His 29 years on the U.S. Supreme Court had been preceded by 20 years on the Massachusetts Supreme Court. The only other justice to serve into his 90s was John Paul Stevens, who retired at the age of 90 years, 2 months, and 9 days. Stevens, however, is the longest-lived justice, passing away in 2019 at the age of 99.

[Dan Schiavetta]

"The show wasn't as bad as some I've seen. It was on the crappy side, though. It was about five hundred thousand years in the life of this one old couple. It starts out when they're young and all, and the girl's parents don't want her to marry the boy, but she marries him anyway. Then they keep getting older and older. The husband goes to war, and the wife has this brother that's a drunkard. I couldn't get very interested. I mean I didn't care too much when anybody in the family died or anything. They were all just a bunch of actors. The husband and wife were a pretty nice old couple--very witty and all--but I couldn't get too interested in them. For one thing, they kept drinking tea or some goddam thing all through the play. Every time you saw them, some butler was shoving some tea in front of them, or the wife was pouring it for somebody. And everybody kept coming in and going out all the time--you got dizzy watching people sit down and stand up."

As our tenth grade teacher told us, Holden and Sally were seeing "The Magnificent Yankee". It was my first exposure, fourth-hand, to Holmes.

[CJColucci]

A pretty good Justice, but no Clarence Thomas.

[Dan Schiavetta]

They didn’t know at that point that Hoover was on the way out. Holmes got noticeably weaker in the summer of 1931 and by early 1932 his colleagues convinced him he should step down.

After FDR was elected he visited Holmes and got him to talk about his Civil War service. FDR talked about what he wanted to do for the country. Holmes of course could see the disability which FDR so assiduously hid from the public. It was Holmes who then said of FDR, “A second class intellect, but a first class temperament.”