Judges Commons^™

Racial Revisionism, Shaun Ossei-Owusu

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Enigma of Clarence Thomas. by Corey Robin.

The Passion Of John Paul Stevens, Linda Greenhouse

Michigan Law Review

Review of John Paul Stevens' The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years.

Cardozo On The Supreme Court: Meeting High Expectations, Richard D. Friedman

Articles

President Trump announced his nomination of Neil Gorsuch — the sixth most senior judge on a federal appellate court in the hinterland—for a seat on the Supreme Court in a formal, nationally televised ceremony. Judge Gorsuch squeezed the shoulder of his wife, a gesture that signaled not only his thrill at the nomination but his joy at being able to share it with her. There followed a bitterly partisan process, featuring hearings at which the nominee testified and deflected questions about his substantive views. A change in the Senate rules, ending the possibility of a filibuster, was necessary to bring …

Some Kind Of Judge: Henry Friendly And The Law Of Federal Courts, Aaron P. Brecher

Michigan Law Review

Uberfans of the federal judiciary owe a lot to David Dorsen. His illuminating biography of Judge Henry Friendly is a fitting tribute to the contributions of a jurist that many consider to be among the finest judges never to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Judicial biography is a difficult genre to do well, and most authors choose to focus on Supreme Court justices. But Henry Friendly, Greatest Judge of His Era is an excellent source of information on Friendly’s life and, far more important, his views on the law and his relationships with some of the most fascinating figures …

Justice Brennan: Legacy Of A Champion, Dawn Johnsen

Michigan Law Review

During the 1980s, when the Court's approval rating was relatively high, commentators from both ends of the ideological spectrum remarked on the importance of Justices' values and views, and bemoaned the public's utter lack of attention to the Court and judicial appointments. President Ronald Reagan's Department of Justice prefaced an extensive analysis of the momentous issues at stake for the Court and the Constitution with a call for attention to the "critical" yet "often overlooked" "values and philosophies" of federal judges. Professor Laurence Tribe similarly introduced a historical analysis of the Court's vital role by describing Justices' "powerful, if often …

John C.H. Wu And His Comparative Law Pursuit, Xiaomeng Zhang

Law Librarian Scholarship

In this paper, I will focus on exploring Wu's accomplishments in comparative law from four different aspects. After a brief introduction to the historical and societal background of Wu' s life and research in Part II, I will examine his comparative law research and methodologies in Part III. In Part IV, I will elaborate his contributions to the development of Chinese legal education in the Republican China era at the Comparative Law School of China. I will then analyze how his jurisprudence was further reflected in his judicial rulings, which helped shape the contemporary Chinese judicial system in Part V. …

Tribute: Dores Mccrary Mccree, David L. Chambers

Articles

Dores McCree made your day a little better whenever she walked into a room. When you talked with her, you knew her goal was simply to enjoy your company, not to get something out of you, and not to show herself off. She was good at talking and good at listening. She'd cock her head slightly and ask questions to which she really cared about the answers. On more than one occasion, I had to jockey with others to be able to sit with her at a dinner.

Owen J. Roberts, Richard D. Friedman

Book Chapters

Roberts, Owen Josephus (1875-1955). Lawyer and U.S. Supreme Court justice. Roberts was born in Philadelphia and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1895 and from its law school in 1898. He taught there part-time beginning almost immediately until 1919, reaching the rank of full professor in 1907. While operating a profitable dairy farm, Roberts practiced law privately, punctuated by a three-year stint beginning in 1901 as first assistant district attorney of Philadelphia County. Tall and robust, he made a striking figure in both classroom and courtroom.

Charles Evans Hughes, Richard D. Friedman

Book Chapters

Hughes, Charles Evans (1862-1948). Lawyer, politician, diplomat, and chief justice of the United States. Hughes was born in Glens Falls, N.Y., the son of a Baptist preacher from the English- Welsh border country who changed congregations from time to time. Young Hughes spent his earliest years in several locations in New York and New Jersey before the family settled in Brooklyn. A precocious child, he was educated both at home and in public school. At age 14, he began college at Madison (now Colgate) University, a Baptist institution. After his sophomore year, he transferred to Brown, which also had a …

Obligations Impaired: Justice Jonathan Jasper Wright And The Failure Of Reconstruction In South Carolina, Caleb A. Jaffe

Michigan Journal of Race and Law

Part I of this article, on the historiography of South Carolina Reconstruction, explains the difficulty scholars have had in uncovering the documentary history of Reconstruction, and outlines the development of historical interpretations of Reconstruction from the Nineteenth century Redeemer-era accounts to the revisionists of the 1970's. Part II provides brief biographies of both Justice Wright and William James Whipper. Parts III and IV track the different approaches of Whipper and Wright on two vital issues of their day: (1) whether to repudiate all private debts relating to slavery; and (2) how to construct a homestead law to protect cash-poor landowners. …

Justice Frank Murphy And American Labor Law, Theodore J. St. Antoine

Articles

Working people and disfavored groups were central concerns of Frank Murphy, the last Michigan Law School graduate to sit on the United States Supreme Court. In the pages of this Review, just over a half century ago, Archibald Cox wrote of him: "It was natural ...th at his judicial work should be most significant in these two fields [labor law and civil rights] and especially in the areas where they coalesce."' In this Essay, after a brief overview of Murphy the man, his days at the University of Michigan, and his career prior to the Court appointment, I shall review …

Cardozo The [Small R] Realist, Richard D. Friedman

Reviews

In Part I of this Review, I will discuss aspects of Cardozo's life and character. In Part II, I will discuss Cardozo's jurisprudential theory as revealed in his lectures and essays. In Part IlI, I will suggest how we gain a better perspective on his judicial opinions by understanding not only that theory but also the man and his life.

Festschrift: Lee Loevinger, Layman E. Allen

Articles

Lee Loevinger is well-known and recognized for his outstanding achievements as a Minnesota Supreme Court Justice, as Assistant United States Attorney General for Antitrust, and as a superb practicing attorney. Perhaps less appreciated are his extraordinary contributions to the intersection of law and science generally and more particularly to the nurturing of the application of computer technology to law in its infancy.

In Memoriam: Lewis F. Powell, Jr., Christina B. Whitman

Articles

At the time of his resignation, Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr. was justly praised as a moderate, flexible jurist - open-minded, suspicious of ideology, most often found at the center of a divided Supreme Court. Yet Justice Powell was a man of deeply conservative instincts. Suspicious of invitations to expand the scope of individual constitutional rights, he was a participant and even a leader in the Court's reassertion of a federalism that emphasized deference to states and in its reinvigoration of restrictions on access to federal courts. His jurisprudence was all of a piece. Justice Powell's reluctance to expand federal …

Lessons From The Fall, Andrea D. Lyon

Michigan Law Review

This book is both better and worse than one would expect. It is the story of Sol Wachtler, former Chief Judge of New York State Court of Appeals. Wachtler had an extramarital affair with a woman for whom he had been appointed executor, and after the breakup he stalked her with letters, phone calls, and threats. Eventually he was convicted of extortion and sent to prison. His fall from power is what fascinates us, of course, but that is not what is valuable about this book. It answers an outsider's questions about the prison experience, seems to reflect accurately the …

The Reluctant Justice: Lewis F. Powell Jr. Personifies The 'Quality Of Attentiveness', Christina B. Whitman

Articles

Lewis F. Powell Jr. came to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 reluctantly and at an age when many professionals are anticipating retirement rather than a career change. But the Court suited him. He grew to love the work, although he often found it agonizing, and he thrived on the role he played in the history of the Constitution.

The Reluctant Justice: Lewis F. Powell Jr. Personifies The 'Quality Of Attentiveness', Christina B. Whitman

Book Chapters

Lewis F. Powell, Jr., came to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1972 reluctantly and at an age when many professionals are anticipating retirement rather than a career change.

But the Court suited him. He grew to love the work, although he often found it agonizing, and he thrived on the role he played in the history of the Constitution.

By the time he retired in 1987, after more than 15 years on the Court, Powell had come to represent a kind of ideal justice -- moderate, flexible, careful. In a sense, his entire life had been preparing him for this …

Holmes' Failure, Louise Weinberg

Michigan Law Review

I have just set down the March 1997 Harvard Law Review, with its centennial celebration of Oliver Wendell Holmes' The Path of the Law. The Path of the Law is a grand thing, in my view Holmes' best thing. But just the same, I find myself surprised that on this occasion none of its celebrants raised what has always seemed to me a weakness of the piece, and of Holmes' much earlier book, The Common Law. This is a weakness that is at once a reflection and a forecast of the failure of its author. Writers today do seem to …

The Jurisprudence Of Yogi Berra, Edward H. Cooper, Grace C. Tonner

Articles

Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra was born on May 12, 1925, in St. Louis, Missouri, and grew up to become one of baseball's all-time greats. Yogi played nineteen years in the Major Leagues, eighteen with the New York Yankees and one with the New York Mets He has been called the greatest Yankee catcher ever. During his career, Yogi played in a record fourteen World Series and was elected the American League's Most Valuable Player three times. Following his playing career, Yogi managed both the Yankees and the New York Mets, and coached the Yankees, Mets, and Houston Astros. He received …

Dream Makers: Black Judges On Justice, Julian Abele Cook Jr.

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Linn Washington, Black Judges on Justice

Justice Lewis F. Powell And The Jurisprudence Of Centrism, Mark Tushnet

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr by John C. Jeffries, Jr.

Hugo Black Among Friends, Dennis J. Hutchinson

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Hugo Black: A Biography by Roger K. Newman

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law And The Inner Self, Michael A. Carrier

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self by G. Edward White

A Modern Hamlet In The Judicial Pantheon, Charles Alan Wright

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Learned Hand: The Man and the Judge by Gerald Gunther

A Biography Of The Second Justice Harlan, Louis R. Cohen

Michigan Law Review

A Review of John Marshall: Great Dissenter of the Warren Court by Tinsley E. Yarbrough

The Man In The Mirror, David A. Logan

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Cardozo: A Study in Reputation by Richard A. Posner

The Justice From Beacon Hill: The Life And Times Of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles A. Bieneman

Michigan Law Review

A Review of The Justice from Beacon Hill: The Life and Times of Oliver Wendell Holmes by Liva Baker

Abe Fortas: A Biography, Michael F. Colosi

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Abe Fortas: A Biography by Laura Kalman

Review Of Cardozo: A Study In Reputation, By R. Posner, Richard D. Friedman

Reviews

Judge Richard Posner has written a genial book about one of our greatest judicial icons, Benjamin N. Cardozo.1 He seeks not only to assess the merits of Cardozo's writings, both on and off the bench, but also to measure, and determine the causes of, Cardozo's reputation. The book is an outgrowth of a lecture series,2 and it reveals its origins in at least two ways. First, the book attempts to reach a mixed audience, composed of both lawyers and laypeople, and in this aspect it is very successful. Nonlawyers, I believe, will have little difficulty following Judge Posner's essential arguments, …

The Parable As Legal Scholarship, G. Edward White

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Two Jewish Justices: Outcasts in the Promised Land by Robert Burt