Legal Biography Commons^™

Felix Frankfurter, Collector Of People, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

Felix Frankfurter engaged, intensely, with people—they were the treasures that he hunted down, evaluated, and collected. This essay, written on the great occasion of Brad Snyder’s Frankfurter biography, considers some of Frankfurter’s most treasured people. One group is people who made Frankfurter, including Frankfurter himself, Henry L. Stimson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Another group is Justice Frankfurter’s three great U.S. Supreme Court colleagues: Justices Hugo L. Black, Robert H. Jackson, and William O. Douglas. A third group is biographers who Frankfurter admired and pushed: Harlan Buddington Phillips, Mark DeWolfe Howe, Jr., McGeorge Bundy, Alexander Bickel, Andrew L. Kaufman, and Philip …

The Trial Of Thomas More - Robert Bolt's A Man For All Seasons, Jonathan Van Patten

Faculty Publications

The path from Magna Carta to the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights runs through the trial of Thomas More. Robert Bolt's magnificent portrayal of that trial in A Man for All Seasons provides an opportunity to learn and reflect on how a political trial can teach us about the meaning of justice. The search for universals must be rooted in the particulars. The particulars in this case will also resonate with modern audiences who seek to understand their own politics in times of crisis.

Reform Through Resignation: Why Chief Justice Roberts Should Resign (In 2023), Scott P. Bloomberg

Faculty Publications

Many proponents of reforming the Supreme Court have expressed support for adopting a system of eighteen-year staggered term limits. These proposals, however, are hobbled by constitutional constraints: Amending the Constitution to implement term limits is highly implausible and implementing term limits through statute is likely unconstitutional. This Essay offers an approach to implementing term limits that avoids these constitutional constraints. Just as President Washington was able to establish a de facto Presidential term limit by not seeking a third term in office, Chief Justice Roberts is uniquely positioned to establish a new norm of serving eighteen-year terms on the Court. …

The Life And Legal Legacy Of Justice Steven L. Zinter, Neil Fulton

Faculty Publications

Justice Steven L. Zinter was a vital part of South Dakota's legal landscape for decades. As a private practitioner, circuit court judge, supreme court justice, and in other official capacities, he forged a powerful legacy in South Dakota. Over the course of his time he worked on cases large and small in many areas of law. He was recognized as a brilliant legal mind, precise writer, and careful thinker. It is a challenge to capture the breadth and depth of such a career. This article takes a look at his personal formation, his legal work in several settings, and how …

Green Bag Cataloging Trivia, Aaron S. Kirschenfeld

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Rehnquist's Missing Letter: A Former Law Clerk's 1955 Thoughts On Justice Jackson And Brown, John Q. Barrett, Brad Snyder

Faculty Publications

"I think that Plessy v. Ferguson was right and should be reaffirmed." That's what Supreme Court law clerk William H. Rehnquist wrote privately in December 1952 to his boss, Justice Robert H. Jackson. When the memorandum was made public in 1971 and Rehnquist's Supreme Court confirmation hung in the balance, he claimed that the memorandum reflected Jackson's views, not Rehnquist's. Rehnquist was confirmed, but his explanation triggered charges that he had lied and smeared the memory of one of the Court's most revered justices. This Essay analyzes a newly discovered document—a letter Rehnquist wrote to Justice Felix Frankfurter in 1955, …

Ferdinand Pecora: The Hellhound Of Wall Street, Michael A. Perino

Faculty Publications

Few Americans today know who Ferdinand Pecora was, although he was once a media superstar, a nearly daily fixture in newspapers and radio broadcasts across the country. With the onset of our current economic woes his name has slowly begun to crop up again. In April 2009, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for a new "Pecora Commission" to investigate "what happened on Wall Street." The next week, the Senate invoked Pecora's name in voting to create an independent committee to investigate the financial crisis, and in January 2010 the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission held its first hearings.

Pecora, a diminutive …

Henry T. King, Jr., At Case, And On The Nuremberg Case, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

Prof. Barrett reflects on his “teacher, colleague and friend for the past eight years,” Henry T. King, Jr. Through work at conferences, with the Robert H. Jackson Center and in many private discussions, Henry King became Prof. Barrett’s "Nuremberg colleague" in the academic and historical senses of that phrase. Henry also hoped and assumed that his friends at Case Western would, after his death, do right by his memory and convene a memorial event. Henry directed Prof. Barrett to attend on this occasion to speak about him and Case Western, and about him and Nuremberg.

The Nuremberg Roles Of Justice Robert H. Jackson, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

This lecture covers the background of Robert H. Jackson and the story of "Nuremberg," which is Jackson's Nuremberg. The program of this Nuremberg conference states that Prof. Barrett will speak about "The Crucial Role of Robert H. Jackson." In fact, there were multiple Jackson roles at Nuremberg—many, many roles and moments were encompassed in the undertaking that has come to be so significant historically that the primary, global meaning of the word "Nuremberg" today is, and probably always will be, the 1945-46 international trial of the principal surviving Nazi criminals. Justice Jackson's Nuremberg was over 15 months of full time …

Asking The Straight Question: How To Come To Speech In Spite Of Conceptual Liquidation As A Homosexual, Jose M. Gabilondo

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Albany In The Life Trajectory Of Robert H. Jackson, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

We recall Supreme Court Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Houghwout Jackson (1892-1954) for many reasons, but certainly a leading one is the striking contrast between his humble origins and his exalted destinations. Jackson's life began literally in the deep woods, on a family farm in the gorgeous rural isolation of Spring Creek Township in northwestern Pennsylvania's Warren County. He spent his boyhood and obtained his basic public school education in Frewsburg, a small town in southwestern New York State. While still a teenager, Jackson spent one additional year as a high school student in nearby Jamestown, New York, but he …

Rediscovering Williston, Mark L. Movsesian

Faculty Publications

This Article is an intellectual history of classical contracts scholar Samuel Williston. Professor Movsesian argues that the conventional account of Williston's jurisprudence presents an incomplete and distorted picture. While much of Williston's work can strike a contemporary reader as arid and conceptual, there are strong elements of pragmatism as well. Williston insists that doctrine be justified in terms of real-world consequences, maintains that rules can have only presumptive force, and offers institutional explanations for judicial restraint. As a result, his scholarship shares more in common with today's new formalism than commonly supposed. Even the under-theorized quality of Williston's scholarship—to contemporary …

Robert H. Jackson's Oral Arguments Before The New York Court Of Appeals, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

(Excerpt)

New Yorkers recall with pride that Robert Houghwout Jackson (1892-1954) was one of us. Jackson became western New York State's leading lawyer during twenty years (1913-1934) in private practice, based primarily in Jamestown. He then went to Washington, D.C., to join FDR's New Deal, and later became an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1941-1954).

We also know Robert Jackson as a great American courtroom lawyer. He was perhaps the finest Supreme Court advocate ever during his years as Solicitor General (1938-1939) and then Attorney General (1940-1941) of the United States. During 1945-1946, Justice Jackson served as …

Profile: Judge George H. Aldrich, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Carla Del Ponte: Her Retrospective Of Four Years In The Hague, Angela M. Banks

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Remembering Andrew I. Batavia, Michael Ashley Stein

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Jackson Portrait For Jamestown, "A Magnet In The Room", John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

As Robert H. Jackson gained prominence in law practice and national government, he had particularly close ties to the city of Buffalo and to its University and School of Law. Jackson briefly practiced law in Buffalo for a year near the start of his career. He continued thereafter to handle Buffalo cases and represent Buffalo clients even though his practice was based in Jamestown. In 1946, Jackson received an honorary degree from the University of Buffalo at its centennial commemoration and spoke then about his just-completed Nuremberg experiences, including the evidence on German persecution of minorities. In 1951, Justice Jackson's …

Teacher, Student, Ticket: John Frank, Leon Higginbotham, And One Afternoon At The Supreme Court--Not A Trifling Thing, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

A path to greatness often begins with a special teacher, and this is such a story. In the fall of 1949, John P. Frank was a new associate professor at the Yale Law School. This story also involves a young student. In autumn 1949, A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., was a first year law student at Yale. Higginbotham, a 21-year-old black man from Trenton, New Jersey, had attended Purdue University and, after transferring, graduated from Antioch College in 1949. Leon Higginbotham was one of three black students who entered Yale Law School in fall 1949. Higginbotham met John Frank when he …

Professor Stephen H. Schulman, Peter J. Henning, Eric Kades

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

State Of Ohio V. Richard D. Chilton And State Of Ohio V. John W. Terry: The Suppression Hearing And Trial Transcripts, John Q. Barrett

Faculty Publications

This appendix to Deciding the Stop and Frisk Cases: A Look Inside the Supreme Court’s Conference, 72 St. John’s L. Rev. 749 (1998), includes Biographical Information on the Participants in the Case; and transcripts of the complete pretrial and trial proceedings in the 1964 criminal prosecutions of Richard Chilton and John Terry, arranged by Prof. Barrett to create the organization reflected in the Table of Contents at the beginning of the appendix. Footnotes were added to provide citations and, in a few instances, to clarify the text. Bracketed material was added to correct obvious slips of the tongue or the …

Law And The Wisconsin Idea, Erika Lietzan, Paul D. Carrington

Faculty Publications

We recall a summer of contentment when American law was suffused with optimism, a season ending a long winter of despair and disorder. For the first fifteen years of this century, many (and perhaps most) American lawyers were filled with confidence that America had healed the wounds of civil war and was healing those of class struggle. We could, and we would, overcome all obstacles to peace and prosperity, not only for our people but for all mankind. This, it was widely believed, would be our century. As early as 1879 Daniel Coit Gilman, the premier educator of his time, …

James Landis: The Administrative Process, Charles H. Koch Jr.

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Sovereign Prerogatives, Jayne W. Barnard

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Art Of Judicial Biography, Michael J. Gerhardt

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Clement Haynsworth, The Senate, And The Supreme Court, Davison M. Douglas

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Enduring Example Of John Marshall Harlan: "Virtue As Practice" In The Supreme Court, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Tribute To Judge Charles Clark, Rodney A. Smolla

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Blame This Messenger: Summers On Fuller, Paul A. Lebel

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Brainerd Currie: Scholar, William W. Van Alstyne

Faculty Publications

These words are written in honor of the memory of Brainerd Currie, a brilliant academic, colleague, and friend.

My Native Grounds, Royal W. France, Jack C. Lane

Faculty Publications

In 1957, near the end of his life, Royal France, a Rollins College economics professor for over twenty years, published My Native Grounds, a memoir that chronicles his life of service and commitment in the first half of the twentieth century. His story, which provides insights and perspectives on American life during the first half of the twentieth century that only an active participant could furnish, will appeal to scholars of both Florida and national histories, particularly those interested in American civil liberties history. This exceptionally well written, readable memoir will appeal as well to the general reader who has …