Chief justice a biography of earl warren

Warren was a liberal Republican, even back then in the first half of the 20th century. It is questionable, perhaps even doubtful, if he would be a Republican at all today. Because Warren was scrupulously honest although sometimes not fully as one might hope and was guided by his own innate sense of integrity, he was a different kind of politician than most.

He refused to engage in quid pro quos and refused to accept bribes. Undoubtedly, this chief justice a biography of earl warren moral manner of conducting his life made him many enemies think of the "Impeach Earl Warren" billboards in the s and possibly cost him support when he wanted to make a run at the presidency in His sense of duty to his country that he swore an oath to protect was more important to him than any position that he could gain from it.

By far the biggest blemish on Warren's star is his acquiescence in and support of the horrible decision to intern all Japanese both American citizens and foreign nationals living in California in by placing them in armed camps. Warren got caught up in the hysteria following Pearl Harbor and, as California Attorney General, was firmly in support of this stupid policy.

It was clear in later years, when he was Chief Justice, that Warren knew he was on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of humanity for playing his role in the internment. While never actually coming out publicly and admitting that he was wrong, in private discussions with friends and family members and even in some of the Supreme Court decisions that he helped to hand down, one could see that Warren's view had changed.

For a man who so prided himself on his own sense of fairness and justice for those who were ill-treated by society, this must have disturbed him until he died. Cray tries to mix in Warren's personal life, and does a fairly decent job at it. Although, after going onto the Supreme Court, the book largely revolves around Warren's court management and decisions.

Cray does divert for one chapter to discuss the Warren Commission President Lyndon Johnson basically demanded of Warren that he head a commission to look into the assassination of Preisdent John F. This is quite interesting as Cray documents several things: how hard Warren worked - essentially doing two full-time jobs for most of when he was already seventy-three years old; how fractured the Commission was Georgia Senator Richard Russell hated Warren because of the latter's desegregation ruling in the famous Brown case; Michigan Representative Gerald Ford was largely a partisan thorn even though he belonged to the same party as Warren ; how Warren's intense involvement and dedication to doing a thorough job ran him afoul of FBI Director J.

Cray also provides context behind Warren's relationship with his one real enemy: Richard Nixon. Warren ultimately lost to Nixon twice: first when Nixon finagled him out of any shot at becoming the Republican Presidential nominee in ironically this led to Warren's appointment as Chief Justice by a reluctant and later regretful President Dwight Eisenhowerand second at the end of Warren's career.

Warren wanted to retire in and submitted his resignation to President Johnson stating he would retire at the President's pleasure. This set the ball rolling on a fiasco: Johnson nominated Associate Justice Abe Fortas to become Chief Justice, the Senate balked - embarrassing both Fortas and Johnson while attacking Warren, Fortas withdrew his name when he saw the writing on the wall, Nixon then becomes President and is the one to appoint Warren Burger as Warren's successor.

This is definitely not what Warren wanted. Nonetheless, despite that episode, Warren was and remains one of the most important and influential Chief Justices in history and helped to redefine and broaden rights for many people who previously had been marginalized by society. While this book is not written poorly, it was a struggle at times to get through.

Cray does not provide any breaks once he begins a chapter, so often times the subject switches markedly from one paragraph to the next. Warren lives a long life, and lived through many societal changes and was present for some big moments. But sometimes that sense doesn't make it through the narrative. Cray spends as much time on the presidential election as he does on Warren's time as a student at the University of California.

Warren's personality never really seems to come out here. In someone else's hands, a more vibrant Earl Warren might very well appear. I so wanted to enjoy this book, but gosh it's a slog. A real kitchen sink of a biography. The author can't leave out a single, minute detail. In his obsession to cram in every little fact, he loses touch with what made Earl Warren so great.

This book needs much less information and much more insight. The first half, to Warren's appointment as chief justice, is worse than the second half, which features explanations of his judicial philosophy, his leadership of the court, and factual back stories of the big cases: Brown v. Board of Education, Baker v. Carr, Mapp v. Ohio, and others.

Still, in the second half I wanted to quit reading several times and instead pushed on when the book was pivoting, as when Warren finally buckled under President Johnson's forceful pressure to chair the commission investigating President Kennedy's assassination. Bottom line: Earl Warren deserves a much better biography than this. One of the nice things upon reading this book about Earl Warren is that author Ed Cray was in complete agreement with me in terms of ranking Warren as one of the big three of our Chief Justices.

The other two are Marshall who established the court as the third branch of government and Hughes who saved it from FDR's court packing plan. As for Warren he charted new horizons in jurisprudence in his tenure from to Ohio questioned whether credible evidence obtained through an illegal search could be admissible in court. Inthe Supreme Court ruled in Weeks v.

United States that evidence illegally obtained could not be used in federal court. However, that ruling did not extend to the states. Subsequent court rulings have placed some exceptions to this ruling, but its main intent remains in force. Inthe Warren Court made another controversial ruling on criminal justice procedures in the case of Miranda v.

In a close decision, the court ruled that a suspect must be informed of his rights to remain silent and have counsel at the time of arrest, or the arrest and all the evidence obtained are inadmissible in court. While Warren was chief justice, the court also dealt with state-sponsored discrimination though apportionment of legislative districts. For decades, the state of Alabama had used the census to apportion representation in state legislative districts.

Since then, the population had shifted from rural to urban areas. The greater population in the urban areas primarily African American and other minorities was disproportionately represented because the state used the older census. In Reynolds v. Simsthe court ruled that Alabama had to reapportion its state legislative districts based on current population figures.

Writing for the Court, Chief Justice Earl Warren argued the right to vote freely and unimpaired preserves all the other basic civil and political rights. In one of its more personal cases affecting the lives of ordinary people, the Warren Court took on state anti-miscegenation laws banning interracial marriages in the case of Loving v. Virginia Mildred and Richard Loving were married in Virginia, but soon were convicted of violating the law against interracial marriage.

They fled to live in Washington, D. In lateWarren returned to Oakland, where he accepted a position as the legislative assistant to Leon E. Gray, a newly elected member of the California State Assembly. Shortly after arriving in the state capital of SacramentoWarren was appointed as the clerk of the Assembly Judiciary Committee. Though many of his professional colleagues supported Calvin CoolidgeWarren cast his vote for Progressive Party candidate Robert La Follette in the presidential election.

That same year, Warren made his first foray into electoral politics, serving as the campaign manager for his friend, Republican Assemblyman Frank Anderson. Knowlanda leader of the conservative faction of San Francisco Bay Area Republicans, Warren was appointed as the Alameda County district attorney in Warren rejected political contributions and largely self-funded his campaign, leaving him at a financial disadvantage to Kelly's preferred candidate, Preston Higgins.

Nonetheless, Warren won a landslide victory over Higgins, taking over two-thirds of the vote. Warren gained a statewide reputation as a tough, no-nonsense district attorney who fought corruption in government and ran his office in a nonpartisan manner. Warren strongly supported the autonomy of law enforcement agencies, but also believed that police and prosecutors had to act fairly.

Alameda County. That happened to be the last oral argument that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes heard, as he announced his retirement later that afternoon, and stepped down from the court just five days later. Warren would be teased by his friends, who would say "He was 30 years on the State Court, he was 20 years on the Supreme Court, he listened to you just once and he said, "I've had it.

The Great Depression hit the San Francisco Bay area hard in the s, leading to high levels of unemployment and a destabilization of the political order. In Whitney v. California Warren prosecuted a woman under the California Criminal Syndicalism Act for attending a communist meeting in Oakland. Alberts, the chief engineer of a freighter, was found dead.

Warren believed that Alberts was murdered in a conspiracy orchestrated by radical left-wing union members, and he won the conviction of union officials George Wallace, Earl King, Ernest Ramsay, and Frank Conner. Many union members argued that the defendants had been framed by Warren's office, and they organized protests of the trial.

While continuing to serve as the district attorney of Alameda County, Warren emerged as leader of the state Republican Party. He served as the county chairman for Herbert Hoover 's campaign and, after Franklin D. Roosevelt won that election, he attacked Roosevelt's New Deal policies. In the presidential electionWarren campaigned on behalf of the unsuccessful Republican nominee, Alf Landon.

Nina had been born in Sweden to a Baptist minister and his wife, and her family had migrated to the United States when she was an infant. Their first child, Virginia, was born inand they had four more children: Earl Jr. Warren also adopted Nina's son, James. Warren enjoyed a close relationship with his wife; one of their daughters later described it as "the most ideal relationship I could dream of.

Though the Warrens sent their children to Sunday school at a local Baptist church, Warren was not a regular churchgoer. Each one introduced Warren to new friends and political connections. He rose through the ranks in the Masons, culminating in his election in as the Grand Master of the Freemasons for the state of California from to Those ideals knitted together Warren's Progressivism, his Republicanism, and his Masonry.

InWarren and his allies won passage of a state ballot measure that transformed the position of Attorney General of California into a chief justice a biography of earl warren office; previous officeholders had worked part-time while maintaining their own private practice. Webb announced his retirement, Warren jumped into the state attorney general election.

Warren took advantage of that amendment and ran in multiple primaries. He faced no serious opposition in the elections, even while incumbent Republican Governor Frank Merriam was defeated by Democratic nominee Culbert Olson. Once elected, he organized state law enforcement officials into regions and led a statewide anti-crime effort. One of his major initiatives was to crack down on gambling ships operating off the coast of Southern California.

Webb's four decades in office. These included eugenic forced sterilizations and the confiscation of land from Japanese owners. Traynorwho was then a law professor at UC Berkeley and later became the 23rd chief justice of Californiaas well as one of the most influential judges of his time. After World War II broke out in Europe inforeign policy became an increasingly important issue in the United States; Warren rejected the isolationist tendencies of many Republicans and supported Roosevelt's rearmament campaign.

DeWittand the internment was carried out by federal officials, Warren's advocacy played a major role in providing public justification for the internment. By earlyWarren had come to regret his role in the internment of Japanese Americans, and he eventually approved of the federal government's decision to allow Japanese Americans to begin returning to California in December ; [ 56 ] however, he long resisted any public expression of regret in spite of years of repeated requests from the Japanese American community.

In a oral history interview, Warren said that "I feel that everybody who had anything to do with the relocation of the Japanese, after it was all over, had something of a guilty consciousness about it, and wanted to show that it wasn't a racial thing as much as it was a defense matter. Whenever I thought of the innocent little children who were torn from home, school friends, and congenial surroundings, I was conscience-stricken Warren frequently clashed with Governor Culbert Olson over various issues, partly because they belonged to different parties.

As early assupporters of Warren began making plans for his candidacy in California's gubernatorial election. He cross-filed in the Democratic and Republican primaries, ran without a party label, and refused to endorse candidates running for other offices. He sought to attract voters regardless of party, and stated "I can and will support President Roosevelt better than Olson ever has or ever will.

In August, Warren easily won the Republican primary, and surprised many observers by nearly defeating Olson in the Democratic primary. In November, he decisively defeated Olson in the general election, taking just under 57 percent of the vote. Warren's victory immediately made him a figure with national stature, and he enjoyed good relations with both the conservative wing of the Republican Party, led by Robert A.

Taftand the moderate wing of the Republican Partyled by Thomas E. Warren modernized the office of governor, and state government generally. Like most progressives, Warren believed in efficiency and planning. During World War II, he aggressively pursued postwar economic planning. Fearing another postwar decline that would rival the depression years, Governor Earl Warren initiated public works projects similar to those of the New Deal to capitalize on wartime tax surpluses and provide jobs for returning veterans.

For example, his support of the Collier-Burns Act in raised gasoline taxes that funded a massive program of freeway construction. Unlike states where tolls or bonds funded highway construction, California's gasoline taxes were earmarked for building the system. Warren's support for the bill was crucial because his status as a popular governor strengthened his views, in contrast with opposition from trucking, oil, and gas lobbyists.

The Collier-Burns Act helped influence passage of the Federal Aid Highway Act ofsetting a pattern for national highway construction. Warren also pursued social legislation. He built up the state's higher education system based on the University of California and its vast network of small universities and community colleges. WestminsterGovernor Warren signed legislation ending the segregation of American Indians and Asians.

Chief justice a biography of earl warren

Sharp He also improved the hospital and prison systems. ByCalifornia's economy was booming, Warren was widely popular, and he enjoyed excellent relations with the state's top Democratic officeholder, Attorney General Robert W. At the urging of state party leaders, Kenny agreed to run against Warren in the gubernatorial electionbut Kenny was reluctant to criticize his opponent and was distracted by his role in the Nuremberg trials.

As inWarren refused to endorse candidates for other offices, and he sought to portray himself as an effective, nonpartisan governor. Warren easily won the Republican primary for governor and, in a much closer vote, defeated Kenny in the Democratic primary. Senate candidacy and Goodwin Knight 's candidacy for lieutenant governor. Warren won the general election by an overwhelming margin, becoming the first Governor of California since Hiram Johnson in to win a second term.

Though he considered retiring after two terms, Warren ultimately chose to seek re-election inpartly to prevent Knight from succeeding him. He easily won the Republican primary, but was defeated in the Democratic primary by James Roosevelt. Warren disliked what he saw as Nixon's ruthless approach to politics and was wary of having a conservative rival for leadership of the state party.

Despite Warren's refusal to campaign for him, Nixon defeated Democratic nominee Helen Gahagan Douglas by a decisive margin. After his election as governor, Warren emerged as a potential candidate for president or vice president in the election. Seeking primarily to ensure his status as the most prominent Republican in California, he ran as a favorite son candidate in the Republican primaries.

Warren won the California primary with no opposition, but Thomas Dewey clinched the party's presidential nomination by the time of the Republican National Convention. Warren delivered the keynote address of the convention, in which he called for a more liberal Republican Party. Dewey asked Warren to serve as his running mate, but Warren was uninterested in the vice presidency and correctly believed that Dewey would be defeated by President Roosevelt in the election.

After his re-election victory, Warren began planning a run for president in the election. However, Dewey won the nomination on the third ballot of the convention. Far ahead in the polls against President Harry S. Trumanthe Democratic nominee, Dewey ran a cautious campaign that largely focused on platitudes rather than issues. After his re-election, Warren decided that he would seek the Republican nomination in the presidential electionand he announced his candidacy in November Taft also sought the nomination, but Dewey declined to make a third run for president.

Dewey and his supporters instead conducted a long campaign to draft General Dwight D. Eisenhower as the Republican presidential nominee. In the California primary, he defeated a challenge from Thomas H. Werdelwhose conservative backers alleged that Warren had "abandoned Republicanism and embraced the objectives of the New Deal. After the primaries, Warren had the support of 80 delegates, while Eisenhower and Taft each had about delegates.

Though the California delegation was pledged to support Warren, many of the delegates personally favored Eisenhower or Taft. Unknown to Warren, Eisenhower supporters had promised Richard Nixon the vice presidency if he could swing the California delegation to Eisenhower. Before the official end of the first ballot, several states shifted their votes to Eisenhower, giving him the nomination.

Ultimately, Eisenhower defeated Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson IItaking 55 percent of the national popular vote. After the election, President-elect Eisenhower promised that he would appoint Warren to the next vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States. Warren turned down the position of Secretary of the Interior in the new administration, but in August he agreed to serve as the Solicitor General.

Vinson died. Deweybut Dewey declined the offer. He then considered either elevating a sitting Supreme Court justice or appointing another individual with judicial experience but ultimately chose to honor his promise to appoint Warren to the first Supreme Court vacancy. He has been very definitely a liberal-conservative; he represents the kind of political, economic, and social thinking that I believe we need on the Supreme Court.

Warren received a recess appointment in October In the winter of —, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported him favorably by a 12—3 majority, with three southerners in James EastlandOlin D. Johnston and Harley M. Kilgore reporting negatively. Warren was also the first Scandinavian American to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Nonetheless, they disagreed about the role that courts should play.

Felix Frankfurter led a faction that insisted upon judicial self-restraint and deference to the policymaking prerogatives of the White House and Congress. Hugo Black and William O. Douglas led the opposing faction by agreeing the Court should defer to Congress in matters of economic policy but favored a more activist role for the courts in matters related to individual liberties.

Warren's belief that the judiciary must seek to do justice placed him with the Black and Douglas faction. Brennan Jr. As chief justice, Warren's most important prerogative was the power to assign opinions if he was in the majority. That power had a subtle but important role in shaping the Court's majority opinions, since different justices would write different opinions.

However, Warren learned quickly and soon was in fact, as well as in name, the Court's chief justice. Warren saw the US Constitution as the embodiment of American values, and he cared deeply about the ethical implications of the Court's rulings. Urofsky concludes that "scholars agree that as a judge, Warren does not rank with Louis BrandeisBlack, or Brennan in terms of jurisprudence.

His opinions were not always clearly written, and his legal logic was often muddled. Soon after joining the Court, Warren presided over the case of Brown v. The Southern United States had implemented Jim Crow laws in aftermath of the Reconstruction Era to disenfranchise African Americans and segregate public schools and other institutions.

In the case of Plessy v. Fergusonthe Court had held that the Fourteenth Amendment did not prohibit segregation in public institutions if the institutions were " separate but equal. Inthe Vinson Court had begun hearing the NAACP's legal challenge to segregated school systems but had not rendered a decision when Warren took office. By the early s, Warren had become personally convinced that segregation was morally wrong and legally indefensible.

Warren sought not only to overturn Plessy but also to have a unanimous verdict. JacksonFelix FrankfurterTom C. Clarkand Stanley Forman Reed were reluctant to overturn Plessy. Warren extensively courted the last holdout, Reed, who finally agreed to join a unanimous verdict because he feared that a dissent would encourage resistance to the Court's holding.

After the Supreme Court formally voted to hold that the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional, Warren drafted an eight-page outline from which his law clerks drafted an opinion, and the Court handed down its decision in May In arranging a unanimous decision in BrownWarren fully established himself as the leader of the Court.

After a Gallup poll found that a plurality of Republican respondents favored Warren as the successor to Eisenhower, Warren publicly announced that he would not resign from the Court under any circumstance. Eisenhower seriously considered retiring after one term and encouraging Warren to run in the presidential election but ultimately chose to run after he had received a positive medical report after his heart attack.

Meanwhile, many Southern politicians expressed outrage at the Court's decisions and promised to resist any federal attempt to force desegregation, a strategy known as massive resistance. Although Brown did not mandate immediate school desegregation or bar other "separate but equal" institutions, most observers recognized that the decision marked the beginning of the end for the Jim Crow system.

Brown applied only to schools, but soon, the Court enlarged the concept to other state actions by striking down racial classification in many areas. Warren compromised by agreeing to Frankfurter's demand for the Court to go slowly in implementing desegregation. Warren used Frankfurter's suggestion for a decision Brown II to include the phrase "all deliberate speed.

Brennan held that state officials were legally bound to enforce the Court's desegregation ruling in Brown. In the term, the Warren Court received condemnation from right-wingers such as US Senator Joseph McCarthy by handing down a series of decisions, including Yates v. United Stateswhich struck down laws designed to suppress communists and later led to the decline of McCarthyism.

Inhe was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. They became personally close after Kennedy was inaugurated. Warren later wrote that "no American during my long life ever set his sights higher for a better America or centered his attacks more accurately on the evils and shortcomings of our society than did [Kennedy]. The s chief justice a biography of earl warren a major shift in constitutional interpretation, as the Warren Court continued the process of the incorporation of the Bill of Rights in which the provisions of the first ten amendments to the US Constitution were applied to the states.

The Warren Court also handed down numerous other important decisions regarding the Bill of Rights, especially in the field of criminal procedure. In New York Times Co. In the majority opinion, Brennan articulated the chief justice a biography of earl warren malice standard for libel against public officials, which has become an enduring part of constitutional law.

Des Moines Independent Community School Districtthe Court reversed the suspension of an eighth-grade student who wore a black armband in protest of the Vietnam War. Fortas's majority opinion noted that students did not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. Seeger expanded those who could be classified as conscientious objectors under the Selective Service System by allowing nonreligious individuals with ethical objections to claim conscientious objector status.

O'Briensaw the Court uphold a prohibition against burning draft-cards. New York in which the Court struck down a state law that prohibited the desecration of the American flag. When his law clerks asked why he dissented in the case, Warren stated, "Boys, it's the American flag. I'm just not going to vote in favor of burning the American flag.

Ohiothe Court held that governments cannot punish speech unless it is "directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action. InEngel v. Vitale held that the Establishment Clause prohibits mandatory prayer in public school. Warren became a favored target of right-wing groups, such as the John Birch Societyas well as the Republican presidential nomineeBarry Goldwater.

Connecticut had the Court strike down a state law designed to restrict access to contraceptionand it established a constitutional right to privacy. Griswold later provided an important precedent for the case of Roe v. Wadewhich disallowed many laws designed to restrict access to abortion. In the early s, the Court increasingly turned its attention to criminal procedure, which had traditionally been primarily a domain of the states.

In Elkins v. United StatesWarren joined with the majority in striking down the "Silver Platter Doctrine," a loophole to the exclusionary rule that had allowed federal officials to use evidence that had been illegally gathered by state officials. The next year, in Mapp v. Ohiothe Court held that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on "unreasonable searches and seizures" applied to state officials.

Ohio in which the Court established that police officers may frisk a criminal suspect if they have a reasonable suspicion that the suspect is committing or is about to commit a crime. Wainwrightthe Court held that the Sixth Amendment required states to furnish publicly funded attorneys to all criminal defendants accused of a felony and unable to afford counsel.

Prior to Gideoncriminal defendants had been guaranteed the right to counsel only in federal trials and capital cases. In Escobedo v. Illinoisthe Court held that the Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal suspects the right to speak to their counsel during police interrogations. Escobedo was limited to criminal suspects who had an attorney at the time of their arrest and requested to speak with that counsel.

In the landmark case of Miranda v. ArizonaWarren wrote the majority opinion, which established a right to counsel for every criminal suspect and required police to give criminal suspects what became known as a " Miranda warning " in which suspects are notified of their right to an attorney and their right to silence. Warren incorporated some suggestions from Brennan, but his holding in Miranda was most influenced by his past experiences as a district attorney.

Unlike many of the other Warren Court decisions, including Mapp and GideonMiranda created standards that went far beyond anything that had been established by any of the states. Miranda received a strong backlash from law enforcement and political leaders. The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government.

And the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise. Inseveral residents dissatisfied with Tennessee's legislative districts brought suit against the state in Baker v. Like many other states, Tennessee had state legislative districts of unequal populations, [ c ] and the plaintiffs sought more equitable legislative districts.

In Colegrove v. Greenthe Supreme Court had declined to become involved in legislative apportionment and instead left the issue as a matter for Congress and the states. Facts So Simple. The Roving Commission. DeepRooted Feelings. Squaring the Corners. The Man of Gravitas. Selected Bibliography. Pinkys Way. The Deputy. The Boy Scout. The Radicals.

Moon and Star. The Storm.