Justice Felix Frankfurter
Today’s Justice of the Day is: FELIX FRANKFURTER. Justice Frankfurter was born on this day, November 15, in 1882.
Justice Frankfurter was born in present day Vienna, Austria, one of only six Members of the Supreme Court of the United States who were born overseas. His family immigrated to the U.S. in 1894, and he was ultimately raised among the tenements of Manhattan’s lower east side in New York City, New York. Justice Frankfurter went on the attend City College of New York, graduating with a B.A. in 1902, before attending Harvard Law School, which he graduated from with an LL.B. in 1906.
Justice Frankfurter briefly entered private practice in his home town of New York in 1906, but then went to work as an Assistant United States Attorney of the Southern District of New York later that same year. He left that position in 1909, and then served as an aide to the United States Attorney he had worked under, Henry L. Stimson, a Republican, as he campaigned for Governor of New York in 1910 (while that effort proved unsuccessful, Stimson would go on to enjoy a career as Secretary of War in the Taft Administration). The following year, Justice Frankfurter became a Law Officer of the United States Department of War’s Bureau of Insular Affairs, a position he left in 1914 to become the Byrne Professor of Administrative Law at Harvard University, located in Massachusetts, the state from which he would be appointed to the SCUS. He ultimately remained at Harvard until he joined the SCUS, except for a brief stint as a U.S. Army Major in the JAG Corps. from 1917 to 1920. During his time in academia, Justice Frankfurter gained a distinct reputation as one of the foremost experts on constitutional law, which combined with his having been a confidant of several Members of the SCUS, including Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis Brandeis, gave his nomination an aura of near-inevitability about it.
Justice Frankfurter was nominated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 5, 1939, to a seat vacated by Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 17, and received his commission on January 20. Justice Frankfurter took the Judicial Oath to officially join the SCUS on January 30, and served on the Hughes, Stone, Vinson and Warren Courts. He assumed senior status on August 28, 1962, and his service was terminated on February 22, 1965, due to his death.
Justice Frankfurter is remembered for, among other aspects of his life and career, his distinctively prolific and engaging writing style. His opinions stand out to this day as a refreshing departure from the often colorless prose that typifies SCUS writings. Justice Frankfurter arrived at the SCUS to much fanfare, and was expected to become one of the leading Justices on the Court, if not the principal leader of that institution. However, he ultimately fell far short of those expectations. Justice Frankfurter became infamous for a condescending – almost smarmy – personality soon after arriving, which quickly set him at odds with his colleagues. He even managed to sour relationships with those who he had regarded as friends prior to serving on the SCUS, like Justice William O. Douglas. Justice Frankfurter’s tendency to treat his peers as if they were his law students (he was known for speaking in conference for exactly 50 minutes on any given case, because that was the length of a lecture at Harvard Law School) proved to be the downfall of any chance he had to seriously influence the SCUS. Despite his brilliance, Justice Frankfurter’s personality and conservatism resulted in his being largely sidelined by his more liberal colleagues, specifically Chief Justice Earl Warren, Justice Douglas and Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.