Today in Supreme Court History: July 19, 1949

7/19/1949: Justice Frank Murphy dies.

Justice Frank Murphy

Comments

[Supremacy Claus]

Two more disgraceful cases ignored the plain language of the constitution by this toxic profession. Decisions are only feelings, biases, hanger, etc. by low life scumbags. Their sole validation is from a few fat guys with guns. Cancel them. Arrest them. Try them. Put them in gen pop.

[Malika the Maiz]

This post is about a guy not cases, ya goof.

[Supremacy Claus]

Click on the link, genius. Stop being so toxic. Your life is being destroyed by the lawyer profession, and you are oblivious. They allow a billion crimes. Nothing they do works, save take our $1.5 trillion and return nothing of value. Our economic growth could be 10% instead of a pathetic 2% if we got rid of them. There would be an end to wars without the lawyer profession.

[Malika the Maiz]

There’s three cases at the link, ya goof.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Frank Murphy and Wiley Rutledge (who John Paul Stevens clerked for) died before a decade into their terms. They were part of the liberal bloc with Murphy ("temper justice with mercy"), the most liberal. He replaced Pierce Butler and was replaced by Tom Clark.

He had both political (mayor, governor, both of Michigan and the Philippines) and legal qualifications (attorney general). Murphy did have a reputation for relying on clerks for writing his opinions.

There are rumors that Murphy was gay. See, for instance, the book Courting Justice: Gay Men And Lesbians v. The Supreme Court by Deb Price and Joyce Murdoch.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Temper justice with Murphy. Oh well.

[F.D. Wolf]

As Joe notes, Frank Murphy and Wiley Rutledge, along with Hugo Black and William Douglas, comprised the liberal bloc of the Vinson Court. Both Murphy (July 19) and Rutledge (September 10) would die unexpectedly within a few months of each other in 1949. Murphy was 59 years old; Rutledge was 55.

President Truman would replace Murphy and Rutledge with Tom Clark and Sheman Minton, respectively. Clark and Minton tended to vote with the conservatives, so a 5-4 conservative Court became a 7-2 conservative Court, with Black and Douglas writing more dissents than the other justices combined. The Vinson Court is often described as a brief conservative interlude between the liberal Stone Court and the very liberal Warren Court.

[Dr. Ed 2]

If I am not mistaken, last justice not to have graduated from law school.

[F.D. Wolf]

Murphy graduated from Michigan Law School in 1914. The last justice without a law degree to be appointed was James Byrnes, who served from 1941 to 1942. The last sitting justice without a law degree was Stanley Reed, who served from 1938 to 1957.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Thanks

[F.D. Wolf]

[moved]