Jurisprudence Commons^™

Justice Murphy: The Freshman Years, Woodford Howard

Vanderbilt Law Review

Justice Murphy is commonly regarded as having been a libertarian activist. He was not highly regarded as a Justice during his lifetime and this opinion prevails today. Here Professor Howard sees Justice Murphy during his early years on the Supreme Court as a man of indecision rather than an uncompromising libertarian. Through an examination of first amendment cases between 1940-42, the author finds that Murphy displayed a common reaction to the responsibilities of a new Supreme Court Justice which differed from most only in intensity.

Chief Justice Taft At The Helm, Alpheus T. Mason

Vanderbilt Law Review

The office of Chief Justice carries scant inherent powers. The Chief Justice manages the docket, presents the cases in conference, and guides the discussion. When in the majority, he assigns the writing of opinions. Whatever influence he exerts in the exercise of these prerogatives rests less on formal authority than on elusive personal characteristics. Charles Evans Hughes, who had served as Associate Justice from 1910 to 1916 and later had been able to observe Taft's role in the Court over a period of seven years, considered the Chief Justice "the most important judicial officer in the world." His actual power, …

Supreme Court Attitudes Toward Federal Administrative Agencies, Joseph Tanenhaus

Vanderbilt Law Review

This article reports for a legal audience an examination by social science methods of the validity of certain hypotheses about the behavior of the United States Supreme Court and of its individual members. In order that this study may be viewed in broader perspective,the first part of the essay surveys the prior uses of social science methods in dealing with the judicial process.

Holmes And Brandeis: Companions In Dissent, Samuel J. Konefsky

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the 1920's, the words "Justices Holmes and Brandeis dissented" had become a familiar refrain in discussions about the work of the Supreme Court. This affinity between two men so unlike each other in background and method naturally puzzled the observers, and the effort to explain their relationship has produced two mutually contradictory theories. One view holds that though the two jurists approached problems differently, they usually arrived at the same conclusion because they shared a common philosophy on all really basic issues. "Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Dembitz Brandeis," a contemporary press comment read, "have achieved a spiritual kinship …

The Moral Element In Supreme Court Decisions, Samuel E. Stumpf

Vanderbilt Law Review

Does the United States Supreme Court decide cases on the basis of moral and ethical value judgments? Such a question may reveal a misunderstanding of the nature of law as well as the nature of the judicial process. Moreover, to expect the Court to roam in the field of morals may indicate a failure to take into account the limitations placed upon the Court both by our federal system and by the division of powers. Indeed, a reading of the Supreme Court decisions for the past twenty years reveals a manful resistance on the part of the judges to intrude …

Book Reviews, Carl B. Swisher (Reviewer), Elvin E. Overton (Reviewer), Jay Murphy (Reviewer), Charlotte Williams (Reviewer), Alexander Holtzoff (Reviewer)

Vanderbilt Law Review

Book Reviews

LIONS UNDER THE THRONE

By Charles P. Curtis, Jr.

Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1947. Pp. xviii, 368. $3.50

MR. JUSTICE BLACK: THE MAN AND His OPINIONS

By John P. Frank (Introduction by Charles A. Beard)

New York: Knopf Company, 1949.Pp. xix, 357. $4.00

ON UNDERSTANDING THE SUPREME COURT

By Paul A. Freund

Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1949. Pp. vi, 130. $3.00

MELVILLE VESTON FULLER: CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES, 1888-1919

By Willard L. King

New York: Macmillan Company, 1950. Pp.394. $5.00

CHIEF JUSTICE STONE AND THE SUPREME COURT

By Samuel J. Konefsky (Prefatory Note by Charles A. …