Justice of the Day - ELENA KAGAN

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Tuesday April 28, 2015 · 9:00 AM PDT

2015/04/28 · 09:00

no image description available — Justice Elena Kagan

Justice Elena Kagan

Today’s Justice of the Day is: ELENA KAGAN. Justice Kagan was born on this day, April 28, in 1960.

Justice Kagan was born in Manhattan, New York City, New York. She received an A.B. from Princeton in 1981, then went on to earn an M.Phil. from Worcester College at the University of Oxford in 1983, before graduating with a J.D. in 1986 from Harvard Law School, located in Massachusetts, the state from which she would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States.

Justice Kagan served as a Law Clerk to two prominent members of the federal judiciary, Judge Abner Mikva of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (from 1986 to 1987) and Justice Thurgood Marshall (from 1987 to 1988). The year after completing her clerkships, she began a two years-long stint in private practice in the District of Columbia, before moving on to join the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School, where she worked as an assistant professor (from 1991 to 1994) and a Professor (from 1994 to 1997); during that time she was Special Counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary (in 1993) and Associate Counsel to President William J. Clinton (from 1995 to 1996). Justice Kagan left the University of Chicago to become Deputy Assistant for Domestic Policy and Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council in the Executive Office of the President from 1997 to 1999, the year she joined the faculty of her law school alma mater. At Harvard, she would rise from visiting professor (from 1999 to 2001) to Professor (from 2001 to 2010) to Dean (from 2003 to 2009). Justice Kagan is thought to have left the White House in part because President Clinton’s June 17, 1999 nomination of her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit failed after the Republican-controlled Senate refused to hold a vote on it. She became Solicitor General of the United States in 2009, the first woman to hold that position, and would remain there until her appointment to the SCUS.

Justice Kagan was nominated by President Barack Obama on May 10, 2010, to a seat vacated by Justice John Paul Stevens. She was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 5, 2010, and received her commission the following day. Justice Kagan took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on August 7, and has served her entire tenure on the Roberts Court. She is an actively serving Member of the SCUS, and is currently the most junior Justice serving on that bench.

Justice Kagan has emerged as one of the clearest and most effective writers on the Court today, with some, like well-known journalist Jeffrey Rosen, even saying that her talents in that regard may already rival that of the long-serving (famously skillful writer) Justice Antonin Scalia. In terms of ideology, Justice Kagan seems to be more in line with the relatively moderate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, in contrast with her fellow President Obama-appointee, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who seems to be a bit closer to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In her brief tenure, she has emerged as the consensus builder that Democrats had hoped she would be, and is frequently entrusted by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (the SCUS’s premier swing vote) with delivering the opinion of the Court in many closely-divided cases that feature him joining with the Court’s four Democratic-appointees.

Justice of the Day - WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, JR.

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Saturday April 25, 2015 · 9:00 AM PDT

2015/04/25 · 09:00

Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.

Today’s Justice of the Day is: WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, JR. Justice Brennan was born on this day, April 25, in 1906.

Justice Brennan was born in Newark, New Jersey, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a B.S. in 1928, before moving on to attend Harvard Law School, where he would earn an LL.B. in 1931.

Immediately after graduating from law school, Justice Brennan launched his career in private practice in his home town of Newark, where he would work from then to 1942 and 1946 to 1949. He served as a United States Army Colonel during and just after the Second World War (specifically from 1942 to 1946). Justice Brenan became a Judge of the Superior Court of New Jersey in 1949, where he would remain until his appointment to the Supreme Court of New Jersey in 1952; during that time he served in the Superior Court’s Law Division from 1949 to 1951, and spent the remainder of his time in the Appellate Division. He would ultimately stay on the New Jersey Supreme Court bench until his appointment to the SCUS.

Justice Brennan received a recess appointment from President Dwight D. Eisenhower on October 15, 1956, to a seat vacated by Justice Sherman Minton, and took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on October 16. He was nominated on January 14, 1957, before being confirmed by the United States Senate on March 19, and receiving his commission on March 21. Justice Brennan served on the Warren, Burger and Rehnquist Courts, and assumed senior status on July 20, 1990, due to illness. His service was terminated on July 24, 1997, due to his death.

As with Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice Brennan was among the appointees that President Eisenhower would later come to most regret. An associate of President Eisenhower’s supposedly once saw Justice Brennan delivering a speech that he felt showed a surprising level of judicial conservatism, and convinced the President to pick him; it has been said that President Eisenhower agreed to the choice because he thought that choosing a Catholic Northeastern Democrat would shore up support among a perceived weak demographic he needed for his reelection bid (he ultimately won by such a landslide margin that this effort may have been essentially irrelevant in the end). Justice Brennan would go on to become perhaps the most important member of the SCUS’s liberal wing in his era, as well as the seventh longest-serving Member of the SCUS in its history. In fact, Justice Antonin Scalia, a famous ideological opponent of Justice Brennan, once conceded that he was “probably the most influential justice of the [20th] century.”

Justice of the Day - PETER VIVIAN DANIEL

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Friday April 24, 2015 · 9:00 AM PDT

2015/04/24 · 09:00

Justice Peter Vivian Daniel

Today’s Justice of the Day is: PETER VIVIAN DANIEL. Justice Daniel was born on this day, April 24, in 1784.

Justice Daniel was born in Stafford County, Virginia, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. He attended Princeton University, though he never graduated.

Justice Daniel worked in private practice in Richmond, Virginia in 1808, before starting a three year-long term as a Member of the Virginia House of Delegates the following year. He became a Member of the Virginia Privy Council in 1812, and began serving as Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 1818, before leaving both positions the year before he was appointed by President Andrew Jackson to be a Judge (replacing the man who he would later succeed as a member of the SCUS) of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (which the United States Senate would confirm), where he would ultimately remain until his elevation to the Supreme Court.

Justice Daniel was nominated by President Martin Van Buren on February 26, 1841, to a seat vacated by Justice Philip Pendleton Barbour. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 2, and received his commission the following day. Justice Daniel took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on or around January 10, 1842, and served out his entire tenure on the Taney Court. His service was terminated on May 31, 1860, due to his death.

Justice Daniel is not particularly well-remembered today, like nearly every Member of the SCUS from the 19th century. His most famous act likely is, regrettably, his decision to join the odious opinion of the Court in Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), wherein a nearly-unanimous SCUS tried to effectively forestall the then-coming Civil War by resolving just about every single slavery question in favor of the South, threatening the abolitionist principles of not just the nation’s then-newest territories, but also those of the North itself.

Justice of the Day - JOHN PAUL STEVENS

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Monday April 20, 2015 · 9:00 AM PDT

2015/04/20 · 09:00

Justice John Paul Stevens

Today’s Justice of the Day is: JOHN PAUL STEVENS. Justice Stevens was born on this day, April 20, in 1920.

Justice Stevens was born in Chicago, Illinois, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a B.A. in 1941, before going on to earn a J.D. from the Northwestern University School of Law in 1947.

In between completing his undergraduate career and starting law school Justice Stevens served as a United States Naval Reserve Lieutenant Commander (from 1942 to 1945). He became a Law Clerk to Justice Wiley Blount Rutledge in 1947, a position he left in 1948, the year he launched a career in private practice in his home town of Chicago that would span 22 years. In 1950 Justice Stevens became a Lecturer at his law school alma mater, working there until 1954, when he took the same position at his undergraduate alma mater’s law school (where he would work until 1958); concurrently, Justice Stevens was Associate Counsel to the Subcommittee on the Study of Monopoly Power at the United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary (in 1951) and a Member of the Attorney General’s Committee to Study Anti-Trust Laws at the United States Department of Justice (from 1953 to 1955). He was nominated to be a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit by President Richard M. Nixon (which was ultimately confirmed by the United States Senate) in 1970, where he would remain until his elevation to the SCUS.

Justice Stevens was nominated by President Gerald R. Ford on November 28, 1975, to a seat vacated by Justice William O. Douglas. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 17, and received his commission that day. Justice Stevens took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on December 19, and served on the Burger, Rehnquist, and Roberts Courts. He assumed senior status on June 30, 2010.

Justice Stevens is the third longest-serving Member of the SCUS to date, one of three living former Justices, and gained wide recognition as the unofficial leader of the Court’s liberals following the departure of Justices William J. Brennan, Jr. (in 1990) and Thurgood Marshall (in 1991). Despite his reputation for liberalism, he was not as monolithically left-leaning as he might have seemed to some, as seen in his vote to uphold the criminal sanction of those accused of burning the United States flag in Texas v. Johnson (1989). One or two deviations aside, Justice Stevens’ liberal-leaning judicial ideology emerged in just about every other controversial case he heard. Once he had gained enough seniority to consistently find himself the most senior Justice whenever one of the swing Justices sided with the SCUS’s left-leaning Members, he became famous for tactically selecting which Justice to assign the opinion to (which he did with an eye toward ensuring the majority held), as seen in his decision to give Justice Anthony M. Kennedy the opinion of the Court in Lawrence v. Texas (2003), the case that resulted in the striking down of all remaining anti-sodomy laws around the country. His skill at working with moderate Members of the SCUS to build majorities was also displayed in the area of campaign finance, as in McConnell v. FEC (2003), which saw him writing (in part) with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to uphold virtually all of the campaign finance regulations contained in the famous McCain-Feingold Act (sadly the retirement of Justice O’Connor and her replacement by the far more conservative Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. has severely eroded Justice Stevens’ legal victories in this area).

Justice of the Day - SAMUEL CHASE

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Friday April 17, 2015 · 8:01 AM PDT

2015/04/17 · 08:01

Justice Samuel Chase

Today’s Justice of the Day is: SAMUEL CHASE. Justice Chase was born on this day, April 17, in 1741.

Justice Chase was born in Somerset County, Maryland, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. Like virtually all men and women, even the most accomplished, he did graduate from a university or college.

In 1764, Justice Chase began a decade-long term as a Member of the Lower House of the Maryland Proprietary Assembly, immediately after which he moved on to serve for two year as a Convention Member of the Maryland Provisional Government and began a four year stint as a Delegate to the Continental Congress (he would return to that body in 1784 and 1785). His service as a Member of the Maryland House of Delegates last from 1777 to 1788, the year he began a career as a Judge of the Baltimore County Criminal Court (located in Maryland), where he would remain until his appointment to the SCUS. Justice Chase also served as Chief Judge of the Maryland Genera Court for a half-decade, starting in 1791.

Justice Chase was nominated by President George Washington on January 26, 1796, to a seat vacated by Justice John Blair, Jr. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 27, and received his commission that day. Justice Chase took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on February 4, and served on the Ellsworth and Marshall Courts. His service was terminated on June 19, 1811, due to his death.

Justice Chase is perhaps most famous for being the only Member of the SCUS to have ever faced full, formal impeachment proceedings. He was impeached by the United States House of Representatives on March 12, 1804, before being acquitted by the U.S. Senate on March 1, 1805. The impeachment of Justice Chase was seen as an overtly political act by the President at the time, Thomas Jefferson, who despised him for his zealous defense of Federalist views and for being in close alliance with Chief Justice John Marshall. Justice Chase did not help his own cause with his numerous angry, abrasive outbursts and over-the-top opposition to anti-Federalists, though the U.S. Senate ultimately concluded that he simply had not done anything that warranted removal from office. The acquittal ultimately set a hugely important precedent: members of the judiciary may not be stripped of their duties simply because they do not share the beliefs of the President and/or Congress (a principle that even to this day plays an important role in underlying the separation of powers and judicial independence doctrines of the U.S.).

Justice of the Day - FRANK MURPHY

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Monday April 13, 2015 · 2:36 PM PDT

2015/04/13 · 14:36

Justice Frank Murphy

Today’s Justice of the Day is: FRANK MURPHY. Justice Murphy was born on this day, April 13, in 1890.

Justice Murphy was born in Sand Beach, Michigan, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. He earned an A.B. from the University of Michigan in 1912, and graduated from the University of Michigan Law School with an LL.B. in 1914.

Immediately upon graduation from law school, Justice Murphy launched his career in private practice in Detroit, Michigan, where he would work from then to 1917 and 1922 to 1923. During the five year-long break in his work as a private attorney, he was a United States Army First Lieutenant (from 1917 to 1919), Chief Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan (from 1919 to 1922), and a candidate for the United States House of Representatives from his home state (in 1920). In 1922 Justice Murphy began working as a Professor of Law at the University of Detroit, where he world work continuously for the next half-decade. The year after beginning his professorship, he became a Judge of the Detroit Recorder’s Court, and remained there until 1930, the year he began a three year-long term as the Mayor of Detroit. Justice Murphy left the mayor’s office and subsequently worked as Governor General and High Commissioner of the Philippine Islands (today called the Philippines) for three years (beginning in 1933), before starting a year-long stint as Governor of Michigan in 1937. In 1939 he took office as Attorney General of the United States, a position he would hold until his elevation to the SCUS.

Justice Murphy was nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 4, 1940, to a seat vacated by Justice Pierce Butler. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 16, and received his commission on January 18. Justice Murphy took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on February 5, and served on the Hughes, Stone, and Vinson Courts. His service was terminated on July 19, 1949, due to his death.

Justice Murphy is one of the least well-known Members of the SCUS who served during the mid-20th century. He was an unabashed liberal in his time, even founding the Department of Justice’s first civil rights unit during his tenure as Attorney General. Justice Murphy dissented in one of the modern SCUS’s most erroneously-decided cases, Korematsu v. United States (1944), wherein the majority upheld the internment of Japanese Americans on the grounds that the government must be given (seemingly limitless) leeway during times of national emergency.

Justice of the Day - CHARLES EVANS HUGHES

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Saturday April 11, 2015 · 9:00 AM PDT

2015/04/11 · 09:00

Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes

Today’s Justice of the Day is: CHARLES EVANS HUGHES. Chief Justice Hughes was born on this day, April 11, in 1862.

Chief Justice Hughes was born in Glen Falls, New York, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States (for his terms as an Associate Justice and Chief Justice of the United States). He graduated from Brown University with an A.B in 1881, before going on to earn an LL.B. at Columbia Law School in 1884.

Immediately upon graduation from law school, Chief Justice Hughes launched his career in private practice in New York City, where he would work from then to 1891, 1893 to 1906, 1916 to 1921, and 1925 to 1930. He occasionally worked as an instructor at law schools in between stints in private practice, specifically his law school alma mater, where he was first a Professor of Law (from 1891 to 1893) and later a Special Lecturer (from 1893 to 1895), and New York University Law School, where he was a Special Lecturer (from 1893 to 1900). Following the turn of the 20th century, Chief Justice Hughes served as counsel to the New York Legislature’s Stevens Gas Commission (in 1905) and its Armstrong Insurance Commission (from 1905 to 1906). In 1906 he was Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the United States. The following year Chief Justice Hughes began a three year-long term as Governor of New York, an office he would leave upon being appointed an Associate Justice of the SCUS, before later leaving the Court to run as the Republican Party’s candidate for President of the United States in the 1916 election (he lost to incumbent President Woodrow Wilson by a fairly narrow margin). He served as Secretary of State from 1921 to 1925, the year before he took office as a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, where he would remain until his appointment as Chief Justice.

Chief Justice Hughes was nominated to serve as an Associate Justice by President William Howard Taft on April 25, 1910, to a seat vacated by Justice David Josiah Brewer. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on May 2, and received his commission that day. Then-Associate Justice Hughes took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on October 10, and served out that part of his tenure on the White Court. His service in that capacity was terminated on June 10, 1916, due to his resignation. Chief Justice Hughes was nominated by President Herbert Hoover on February 3, 1930, to a seat vacated by Chief Justice Taft (the very same man who had appointed him to the SCUS in the first place). He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 13, and received his commission that day. Chief Justice Hughes took the oath for that position on February 24, and assumed senior status on June 30, 1941. His service was terminated on August 27, 1948, due to his death.

The failure of Chief Justice Hughes’ bid for the presidency meant that his primary legacy was his service at the SCUS, where he became especially influential during his time as the Court’s leader. He was one of two important swing votes (the other being Justice Owen Roberts) in cases related to President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal initiatives, and was known for being somewhat more willing to side with the SCUS’s liberal wing on such issues than the relatively- conservative Justice Roberts. His crisp, well-crafted opinions and open-minded approach earned him high praise from virtually all of his colleagues on the bench, and he remains well-regarded in most legal circles today.

Justice of the Day - HOWELL EDMUNDS JACKSON

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Wednesday April 08, 2015 · 9:00 AM PDT

2015/04/08 · 09:00

Justice Howell Edmunds Jackson

Today’s Justice of the Day is: HOWELL EDMUNDS JACKSON. Justice Jackson was born on this day, April 8, in 1832.

Justice Jackson was born in Paris, Tennessee, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. He graduated from West Tennessee College (now Union University) in Jackson, Tennessee with an A.B. in 1849, before going on to earn an LL.B. from Cumberland School of Law in Birmingham, Alabama in 1856.

Immediately upon graduation from law school, Justice Jackson launched his career in private practice with a two year-long stint in Jackson; he would subsequently return to that city to work as a private attorney from 1874 to 1880. His time in private practice would include work in Memphis, Tennessee from 1855 to 1861, and 1865 to 1874. In spite of his personal opposition to secession, Justice Jackson served as a receiver of alien property for the West Tennessee region of the Confederate States of America from 1861 to 1864. In 1875 he became a Special Judge of the Court of Arbitration for Western Tennessee, holding that office until 1877. Justice Jackson would go on to serve as a Member of the Tennessee House of Representatives for a single year (starting in 1880), immediately after which he began a half-decade-long term of service as a United States Senator from his home state. He left the United States Senate upon President Grover Cleveland’s successful appointment of him to be a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, where he would remain until his elevation to the SCUS.

Justice Jackson was nominated by President Benjamin Harrison on February 2, 1893, to a seat vacated by Justice Lucius Q. C. Lamar II. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on February 18, and received his commission that day. Justice Jackson took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on March 4, and served out his entire tenure on the Fuller Court. His service was terminated on August 8, 1895, due to his death.

Justice Jackson is not especially well-remembered today, due at least partly to the fact that his tenure is the fifth shortest in SCUS history. Perhaps the most significant case he took part in was Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co. (1895), wherein he had actually broken an initial 4-4 tie (he had left Washington, D.C. but not resigned, hoping to overcome a severe case of tuberculosis) in favor of affirming the right of the federal government to impose an income tax, only to see another Member (some speculate it was Justice Horace Gray) leave the newly-formed 5-to-4 majority and strike the new tax down (the decision would later be superseded by the Sixteenth Amendment, which specifically declared that Congress had the authority to impose an income tax, and South Carolina v. Baker (1988), which overruled another section of it). Justice Jackson died very shortly thereafter.

Justice of the Day - SAMUEL FREEMAN MILLER

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Sunday April 05, 2015 · 9:00 AM PDT

2015/04/05 · 09:00

Justice Samuel Freeman Miller

Today’s Justice of the Day is: SAMUEL FREEMAN MILLER. Justice Miller was born on this day, April 5, in 1816.

Justice Miller was born in Richmond, Kentucky, the state where he would reside during his childhood and adolescence. He graduated from Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky with an M.D. in 1838.

In 1847, Justice Miller began his career in private practice with a three year-long stint in Barbourville, Kentucky, before continuing in Keokuk, Iowa, the state from which would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. He left Kentucky in part due to his personal opposition to slavery, and would gain prominence in his adopted home state of Iowa by playing a key role in the founding of its chapter of the Republican Party (he was rewarded for his service with the staunch support of the entire Iowa Republican delegation, which ultimately persuaded President Abraham Lincoln to pick him for an eventual SCUS vacancy). Justice Miller’s career in private practice in Keokuk would last until his appointment to the SCUS.

Justice Miller was nominated by President Lincoln on July 16, 1862, to a seat vacated by Justice Peter Vivian Daniel. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on July 16, and received his commission that day. Justice Miller took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on July 21, and served on the Taney, Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts. His service was terminated on October 13, 1890, due to his death.

Justice Miller is not especially well-remembered today, like most of his brethren from the 19th century. Regrettably, his opposition to slavery did not preclude him from endorsing some racially-biased views, as seen in his decision to join the odious opinion of the Court in The Civil Rights Cases (1883), a ruling which would make it all but impossible for the federal government to significantly restrain racial discrimination for nearly three-quarters of a century.

Justice of the Day - SAMUEL BLATCHFORD

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Friday April 03, 2015 · 9:00 AM PDT

2015/04/03 · 09:00

Justice Samuel Blatchford

Today’s Justice of the Day is: SAMUEL BLATCHFORD. Justice Blatchford took the Judicial Oath to officially join the Supreme Court of the United States on this day, April 3, in 1882.

Justice Blatchford was born on March 9, 1820 in New York City, New York, the state from which he would be appointed to the SCUS. He graduated from Columbia College with a B.A. in 1837.

Two years after graduating from college, Justice Blatchford began a three year-long stint as a private secretary to New York Governor William Seward, after which he served as his military secretary (from 1842 to 1845); during that time he also entered private practice in his home town of New York City, where he would work as a private attorney from 1843 to 1845 and then from 1854 to 1862 (he would continue his legal work in Auburn, New York during the nine year-long break in his career starting in 1845). In 1852, he became Court Reporter for the United States Circuit Courts for the Second Circuit (one of the forerunners to today’s United States Courts of Appeals), while he simultaneously started out as publisher of Blatchford’s Circuit Court Reports (a position he would hold until 1888). Justice Blatchford was a Trustee of his alma mater, Columbia College, in 1867, the year he received a recess appointment from President Andrew Johnson to be a Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (the United States Senate would later confirm his appointment to a regular judgeship). He stayed on that court until 1878, when President Rutherford B. Hayes nominated him to be a Judge of the U.S. Circuit Courts for the Second Circuit, where he would ultimately remain (after again successfully receiving confirmation from the U.S. Senate) until his elevation to the SCUS.

Justice Blatchford was nominated by President Chester A. Arthur on March 13, 1882, to a seat vacated by Justice Ward Hunt. He was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 22, and received commission that day. Justice Blatchford served on the Waite and Fuller Courts, and his service was terminated on July 7, 1893, due to his death.

Justice Blatchford is not especially well-remembered today, though he was known for being quite the workhorse while at the SCUS. He was an expert on admiralty and patent law, and is said to have been one of the most well-versed legal scholars of the nation’s banking regulations. Justice Blatchford did not have an especially significant impact on the direction of the SCUS or its jurisprudence, and he supposedly holds the record for writing and joining the fewest dissenting opinions of any Member of the SCUS since the Marshall Court.

Justice of the Day - SAMUEL A. ALITO, JR.

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Wednesday April 01, 2015 · 7:33 AM PDT

2015/04/01 · 07:33

Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr.

Today’s Justice of the Day is: SAMUEL A. ALITO, JR. Justice Alito was born on this day, April 1, in 1950.

Justice Alito was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the state from which he would be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. He graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in 1972, and then attended Yale Law School (where he was Editor of the Yale Law Journal), graduating with a J.D. in 1975.

In 1976 Justice Alito began a year-long term as a Law Clerk to Judge Leonard I. Garth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Immediately after his clerkship ended, he became an Assistant United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, a position he would leave upon becoming Assistant to the Solicitor General at the United States Department of Justice in 1981. Justice Alito would work within the Reagan Administration in that capacity for four years, after which he was Deputy Assistant Attorney General (from 1985 to 1987) and United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey (from 1987 to 1990). In 1990 he was appointed a Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit by President George H.W. Bush, where he would remain until his elevation to the SCUS.

Justice Alito was nominated by President George W. Bush on November 10, 2005, to a seat vacated by Justice Sandra Day O`Connor (following President Bush’s unsuccessful attempt to appoint Harriet Miers to the seat). He was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 31, 2006, the day he also received his commission and took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS. Justice Alito has served out his entire tenure on the Roberts Court and is the seventh most senior Member of the SCUS. He is an actively serving Justice.

Justice Alito’s arrival at the SCUS (and more specifically, his replacement of the retiring moderate Justice O’Connor) heralded the Court’s most noticeable swing to the right since liberal icon Justice Thurgood Marshall was succeed by the SCUS’s most conservative currently-serving Justice, Clarence Thomas. Since he joined, the unofficial position of ‘swing Justice’ has fallen to the relatively conservative (at least compared to the aforementioned Justice O’Connor) Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, which has had the effect of allowing the SCUS’s GOP-appointees to win numerous cases that they might otherwise have lost. Justice Alito himself has had a huge impact on various areas of the law, most noticeably in the recent controversies surrounding so-called ‘religious liberty’ cases, such as Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), wherein a 5-to-4 majority opinion, authored by Justice Alito, held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (passed by Congress in the 1990’s) applies to corporations and empowers them to deny contraceptive coverage to female employees if offering such coverage would offend the claimed religious sensibilities of the businesses’ owners.

Justice of the Day - GEORGE SUTHERLAND

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Wednesday March 25, 2015 · 9:00 AM PDT

2015/03/25 · 09:00

Justice George Sutherland

Today’s Justice of the Day is: GEORGE SUTHERLAND. Justice Sutherland was born on this day, March 25, in 1862.

Justice Sutherland was born in Buckinghamshire, England, making him one of only six Members of the Supreme Court of the United States to have been born overseas. His family converted to Mormonism and subsequently moved to Utah, the state from which he would be appointed to the SCUS (he himself would later convert to Presbyterianism, a decision that was almost certainly a major factor in the defeat of his 1916 bid for a third term in the United States Senate). Justice Sutherland attended the University of Michigan Law School, though he never graduated.

Justice Sutherland began an 18 year-long stint in private practice in Provo, Utah in 1883, where he would remain for a decade, after which he moved to Salt Lake City, Utah to continue working as a private attorney; during that time he was also a Utah State Senator (from 1897 to 1901). He began a year-long term as a Member of the United States House of Representatives in 1901, and became a U.S. Senator from his adopted home state in 1905. Justice Sutherland left the U.S. Senate (following his aforementioned defeat for reelection) in 1917, before subsequently entering private practice in Washington, D.C. later that same year, where he would remain until his appointment to the SCUS.

Justice Sutherland was nominated by President Warren G. Harding to a seat vacated by Justice John Hessin Clarke, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, and received his commission, on September 5, 1922. He took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on October 2, and served on the Taft and Hughes Courts. Justice Sutherland assumed senior status on January 17, 1938, and his service was terminated on July 18, 1942, due to his death.

Justice Sutherland is most well-remembered for having been one of the Four Horsemen, a group of SCUS Justices who formed a four-Member conservative block that attempted to strike down huge swathes of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal agenda. While Justice Sutherland and his allies enjoyed much success in their efforts early on, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes’ and Justice Owen Roberts’ decision to move the center and stop assisting them seriously eroded their effectiveness. Later changes to the SCUS’s composition, specifically President Roosevelt’s appointment of more and more left-leaning Justices, would completely end the Four Horsemen’s influence. While Justice Sutherland may have been very influential early in his career at the SCUS, a great many of the opinions he wrote or joined, as well as much of the underlying judicial philosophy they articulated, have since been swept away by subsequent courts.

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