Today in Supreme Court History: October 2, 1967

10/2/1967: Justice Thurgood Marshall takes the oath.

Justice Thurgood Marshall

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Matter of Disbarment of Maddox, 516 U.S. 802 (decided October 2, 1995): I’m an obscure, unsuccessful lawyer and former crisis center director who has never rubbed shoulders with anyone who touched the Court, with this one (literal) exception. In 1987 Alton Maddox was one of the trio of people (with fellow lawyer C. Vernon Mason, and Al Sharpton) who represented a black teenager named Tawana Brawley, who allegedly was gang raped by police officers in a small town near my crisis center. The three kept bleating in the media about wanting justice but would not allow her to be interviewed by any prosecutor so that evidence could be gathered and charges brought. It was a fraud that caused lasting damage to race relations -- crying about injustice yet not allowing it to be righted, which unfortunately served the proto-”antiracism” crowd just fine. Eventually one could deduce that the three had realized that Tawana had fabricated her story and, having painted themselves into a corner, could not admit it. Instead they kept defaming the officers by name. Sharpton, now a commentator on MSNBC, has never owned up to it, which is why I still can’t watch him.

The fallout included Maddox getting disbarred, and I was in the New York Appellate Division on another case when his state disbarment proceeding was being argued. I did not know it was going to happen. Unusually, the seats began to fill (with black people). I was near the front, and Maddox came in and sat right next to me!! It was weird, just he and I in the middle of a bunch of empty seats. I looked back to the crowd and said to him, “They must think I support you.” He said, “Do you?” I thought for a second and said, “I wish you the best.” His case got heard, I forget the details, but my case was next. Everyone left as I got up to speak and I made a little joke to the judges about nobody wanting to hear me.

I often think what I could have done. He was probably in a hothouse atmosphere, surrounded by layers of yes-people, with no one around he could really open up to. My crisis center persona had reclaimed me. Maybe I could have said, “I think there’s a reason you sat next to me,” and given him my business card, and put my home phone number on it, and said, “You can call me any night. I won’t tell anyone. Your name is Sam.”

[Frank Drackman]

Voted for Sharpton in the 2004 GA DemoKKKrat Primary, first as a Goof, then looking at John "Lurch" Kerry and John Edwards, realizing he was a better man than them. The "Reverend" came in third with 6.2%, behind Lurch with 46.8% and Edwards with 41.4%, tell me about that "Wisdom of Crowds" again

[Malika]

Lol, yes, of those three Kerry was certainly the predictable least best performer in the general! What a moron.

[Frank Drackman]

I didn't say I voted for the best performer, only the one with the best character,

[Krychek_2]

And for whom would you have voted in the RepubliKKKan primary?

[Frank Drackman]

I don't know, I'm not a Repubiclown

[Krychek_2]

True, you're just a clown.

[Malika]

Maddox appears to be quite a piece of work, almost straight out of Bonfire of the Vanities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alton_H._Maddox_Jr.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

[deleted]

[Frank Drackman]

Do you think Robert KKK Bird (D, WVA), the only Senator to vote against both Thoroughly-bad Marshall and Clarence Thomas, had any idea that a Black Barry Hussein Osama, 6 years old at the time, would be eulogizing him 40+ years later?

[Malika]

This is a really dumb thing on the Right. There's a caricature for many on the Right that Civil Rights meant white people could never "live down" racism, and they get so mad when that caricature is shown to not be true. Byrd was a racist and then changed, he apologized and demonstrated the sincerity of that by a rest of a life where he tried to "do right." As a result, he was forgiven. As it should be. The problem people have is with people who continue to revel in their racism ("Black Barry Hussein Osama").

[Krayt]

I don’t think he really changed, but I don’t think that about any polititician. They are opportunists. In his case, southern racist Ds were coming to an end, either switch to being an R, and risk his pork barrel gravy train come to an end, or turn his sails to adjust to the new winds.

Again, nothing special about him. I don’t need to look in his eyes and feel his soul has changed, so I don’t have to feel like crap pretending he’s a good guy now. Pols are professional liars. Fundamental Theorem of Government.

[Krychek_2]

The parties have changed though. If all those Jim Crow Democrats came back from the dead, today they would all be wearing MAGA hats and voting Republican. On racial issues, essentially the two parties simply switched sides.

[Swede425]

LOL!
How convenient. You must have a lot of room in your ass now that you've pulled that out of it.
Congratulations on pushing all the racists from your party into the other party. I'm sure the Jews on campus take great comfort from that when being assailed by the rabid leftists that, I guess, are actually MAGA Republicans.
Dolt.

[Krychek_2]

My comment was limited to the Jim Crow Democrats. Do you dispute that if they came back from the dead, today they would be Trump supporters? Because if you do, "dolt" is three steps above your pay grade.

[Swede425]

Wrong.
"On racial issues, essentially the two parties simply switched sides".
What's to dispute? Your unsupported opinion? Your wishful thinking? Yes. I dispute it. Because you offered nothing to support your worthless opinion. I give you an example, a current one, that shows how racist leftists clearly are. And I was being kind by calling you a dolt. Clearly you have a way to go to reach even that level.

[Krychek_2]

My opinion is supported by the fact that I grew up in the South in the 60s and watched the transition myself with my own two eyes.

First of all, Judaism isn't a race, so anti-Semitism isn't a racial issue. So you start off not even getting that right. Jews and Arabs are of the same ancestral stock so this is essentially an inter-family quarrel.

Second, most Democrats are pro-Israel. Do not assume that "the Squad" is typical of mainstream Democrats. So you didn't get that right either. They may not agree with Netanyahu on tactics but they are absolutely in Israel's corner. You might have noticed the current Democratic administration has sent Israel lots of money and arms.

Third, on the stuff that actually is a racial issue, the two parties have indeed switched sides. Which party is currently trying to make it harder for minorities to vote? Which party is undermining civil rights legislation? Ever hear of Nixon's Southern strategy? When the Democrats started supporting civil rights, the racists started voting Republican.

But thank you for single handedly reducing the IQ level on this thread by about 10 points.

[Frank Drackman]

So who's the party responsible (responsible? it's their one ish-yew) for there being 80,000,000 fewer (lesser?) Afro-Amuricans in the US since 1973? it's like the Horror-cost x 13 (and I say "Horror-cost" because 1: it was pretty horrible, and 2: had this Chinese Pathology Professor in Med School, and he pronounced it that way, (you should have heard him try to say "Howell-Jolly Bodies"

Frank

[Krychek_2]

Not everyone agrees with you about abortion. Given how the state ballot measures protecting abortion rights are going, probably a majority don't agree with you about abortion.

[Malika]

He expressed regret for his association with the Klan in 1952, the new winds in WV were not that strong then. Also, when he switched from voting against the Voting Rights Act in 65 to voting for the Civil Rights Act or 68. Lots of Southern segregationists stuck it out far longer than that.

I'm not going to praise the guy for moral awesomeness. But he chose the right path at a time when many chose the wrong and seemed to stick with it sincerely. I agree pols lie and are self-serving, but in WV at that time he made the right, but not obvious politically expedient, choice.

[Dan Schiavetta]

[deleted]

[Dan Schiavetta]

He was the best musician of any politician I can think of. You can see his bluegrass fiddling on youtube. He was really good at it. And violin is a very hard instrument.

[Frank Drackman]

(The Late) Representative Sonny Bono was pretty good too.

[Krychek_2]

Plus the strong probability is that if he came back from the dead and returned to the Senate, today he would be a Republican.

[Frank Drackman]

Hey-Zeus would be? I'm pretty sure he'd have his own party.

[Sarcastr0]

Krayt revels in how his prejudged hate of all politicians means he never needs to think.

[Krayt]

If I’m wrong, I will admit it. Pols go into the profession to be corrupt and enrich themselves. This is open and obvious in most of the world, and all human history. They just have to hide it better in the west.

Why do you think that impulse disappeared here? Because they say so? It didn’t disappear. It is kept in check, somewhat, as evidenced by stronger economies, where free people don’t have go get on bended knee for permission to do anything.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“ Byrd was a racist and then changed,”

He changed so much that he said, in 2001, that niggers could be white.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Justice Marshall generally was very liberal though he had more moderate moments.

One early example was Powell v. Texas. He wrote the plurality upholding a conviction for drinking in public. He also took a middle-of-the-road position in the Pentagon Papers Cases.

==

Movie alert with a legal connection. “Love Story” (not based on a book by Prof. Eric Segall) was on this morning. The “preppie” eventually became a lawyer.

Sign of the times: a doctor finds out someone is dying (a college-educated school teacher) but only tells the husband.

It does the job. I can see why the preppy fell for Ali MacGraw.

In the sequel, which was unnecessarily long but readable (I didn’t see the film), he eventually joined his father’s firm. The first book was a novella. Good length.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The author of “Love Story” did say he partially based the character on Al Gore. Gore’s wife did not die, of course.

Erich Segal noted that Gore’s relationship with his family was used for the character. Gore said that he “read” that he and his wife were the basis of the characters. Segal noted he was misquoted in the article regarding how much he based the character on Gore.

This is a good example of taking media accounts with a grain of salt & not using source material to leap to conclusions. And, how the truth sometimes is in the middle of what people assume.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yet the media, with few exceptions, did not note the error and point out that the untrue statement was in the article, not from Gore's mouth.

People probably still think Gore claimed to have "invented" the internet. It's receding into history now but the media's mistreatment of Gore, and kid-glove treatment of Bush, led to Bush's being installed as President, record deficits (again), 9/11, Iraq.

[Malika]

You're seeing it now with the "sane-splaning" of Trump where he says something deranged and/or borderline fascist and the "MSM" cleans it up for him. The guiding light of modern mainstream journalism of "objectivity" defined by being "fair to both sides" is not equipped to deal with one "side" clearly being off the rails.

[Krayt]

He did say something like he voted for money, "so in a sense I helped invent the Internet."

This was a bit braggadocio but not completely unwarranted. It was largely a government-funded thing until capitalism discovered a use for it and there came the trillions of dollars.

Attackers and defenders both exaggerate to their political advantage.

[Dan Schiavetta]

He did more than vote for money. He probably did more to "create" the internet than anyone in Congress.

He was also prematurely correct about global warming, and prematurely correct about the Iraq War. We lost a great deal by not having him rightfully inaugurated in 2001.

[Frank Drackman]

Ali MacGraw was even hotter in "The Getaway" not sure why she didn't make Adam Sandler's "Chanukkah Song"

[Dan Schiavetta]

Ali McGraw wasn’t much of an actress but she was terrific to look at. She made the cover of Time magazine and the article was correct in pointing to the return of traditional romantic movies, some done very well. My teacher commented on this (I was in eighth grade, I think).

[Syd Henderson]

I don't know if it's still true, but "Love Story" holds the record for the movie with most Academy Award nominations where none of them were ever nominated again. Ryan O'Neal probably should have been. He was a good actor.

[Malika]

Marshall, I think, demonstrates the silliness of people who get mad about Justice selections being based in any part on things like race, ethnicity or gender.

At the time of his appointment, some of those people could have pointed to metrics that purport to show he "wasn't the most qualified for the job" (Lincoln University, Howard not being considered elite schools for example). But he seemed to do as well of a job as fellow justices with more prestigious qualifications. What he also added was a sense to a big chunk of the US population that had hitherto been excluded from such positions of power that now they were represented/could make it. The fact is there's lots of qualified applicants for this type of highly political position. Taking into account various factors isn't necessarily problematic.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Yes.

Plus, multiple recent justices weren’t the “best of the best” or anything. His record, including being solicitor general, was as good as the likes of Potter Stewart, Byron White, and so on.

[Syd Henderson]

I'd say considerably better given his history before the Supreme Court both as a lawyer and Solicitor General. If he wasn't qualified, who was?

[Malika]

That's kind of the point, I think. What's "qualified" is not settled.

[David Nieporent]

He was a great litigator. He ended up not being a great justice.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Remembered mostly now for his dissents.

In 1989 when I was in law school I heard third-hand that he was lazy and did nothing except watch TV. He probably wanted to retire in the early 1980’s but kept waiting for a Democratic President to appoint his successor.

[Krychek_2]

It's been reported that he told his law clerks that if he died during the Reagan administration they were to prop him up and not tell anyone that he had died.

[Syd Henderson]

He died four days after Clinton was inaugurated but he should have retired in the mid-eighties. His best work was as a lawyer.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

National Review around then had a cover with him dozing off watching t.v. He could be tough during oral arguments.

I don't know how strong he could be except in dissents during the Burger/Rehnquist Courts. His early opinions in Powell v. Texas & Stanley v. Georgia showed potential if he had the votes.

[Ridgeway]

He was also a brilliant strategist. Brown did not occur in a vacuum, and if it had, there is no guarantee the plaintiffs would have prevailed.

As head of the NAACP LDF, Marshall helped bring and win cases like McLaurin and Sweatt that set the legal groundwork for Brown.

[Noscitur a sociis]

But he seemed to do as well of a job as fellow justices with more prestigious qualifications.

Unless this is intended as a dig at his colleagues, I’m not sure that I’d agree.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Multiple actors portrayed Thurgood Marshall in films including Danny Glover and Sidney Poitier.

[Syd Henderson]

And the late Chadwick Boseman in a movie entitled simply "Marshall" about a case from his lawyer days. In this case, he was supposed to act as an advisor and it shows how he influenced the lead defense lawyer into becoming a civil rights lawyer himself.

[Dan Schiavetta]

A movie could also be made about his long association with W.E.B. DuBois. The two men didn't like each other -- DuBois was offended by Marshall's drinking and telling dirty jokes, while Marshall regarded DuBois as a cold fish who said hi in the morning then kept his office door shut all day. But the two men accomplished some important things.