Today in Supreme Court History: October 9, 1954

10/9/1954: Justice Robert H. Jackson dies.

Justice Robert H. Jackson

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Pilon v. Bordenkircher, 444 U.S. 1 (decided October 9, 1979): Court, relying on its own recent precedent, reverses the denial of habeas and remands back to District Court; after state court conviction for manslaughter, lower court applied former standard for violation of Due Process (reversing only if there is “no evidence in support of conviction”); new, more defendant-friendly standard is whether if “after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, a rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt”

Agoston v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 340 U.S. 844 (decided October 9, 1950): denying cert in murder case; Frankfurter in support writes to emphasize that denying cert does not mean the Court is affirming the decision below; Douglas and Black dissent, pointing out that this case is similar to a recent case where the Court had overturned conviction on Due Process grounds (Turner v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 338 U.S. 62) (in that pre-Miranda case, appearance before magistrate was delayed until confession had been obtained by police after “prolonged questioning”)

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Alec Baldwin played Robert Jackson in a t.v. miniseries regarding the Nuremberg Trials. Jill Hennessy was Elsie Douglas.

Michael Shannon will play him in a Nuremberg film in production.

Henderson Forsythe is listed as playing him in "Separate But Equal," the t.v. film about Brown v. Board of Education.

Something else about yesterday. Dave Barry in his book about the history of the U.S. used "October 8" as the date when everything happened. Saves time though would make this series a lot shorter.

[Ridgeway]

That mini-series was highly underrated. In particular, Brian Cox as Goering was phenomenal.

[not guilty]

I think that Justice Robert Jackson is the most recent member of SCOTUS to have not graduated from law school.