Law Commons^™

Justice Jackson In The Jehovah's Witnesses' Cases, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

I will address Justice Jackson and Jehovah’s Witnesses in four parts. First, I will begin with Robert Jackson himself, introducing the man who became a Supreme Court Justice, and who came to author Barnette and at least one other very notable opinion in a Jehovah’s Witness case. Second, I will turn to the Barnette case in its Supreme Court legal context, which turns out to be two Court terms, 1941–42 and 1942–43, of many Jehovah’s Witnesses cases. These cases produced a run of Court decisions that are a framework surrounding Barnette, and thus understanding them is important to …