23 SUPREME COURT LEWIS POWELL WIRE PHOTOS VINTAGE ORIGINAL For Sale

23 VINTAGE ORIGINAL WIRE PHOTOS OF LEWIS POWELL FORMER SUPREME COURT JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES
Retired Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., a voice of moderation on the Supreme Court for much of the 1970s and 1980s and the decisive vote during years of ideological turmoil, died yesterday at the age of 90.
Powell was a proud son of his native state of Virginia and a leader in the legal profession nationwide before his appointment by Richard M. Nixon to the court at age 64. He died in his sleep of pneumonia at his home in Richmond.
Distinguished by his soft southern accent and a rigorous code of courtesy, the tall, slender justice provided the pivotal vote on some of the most difficult social dilemmas of his time.
PowellPowell in 1987 (AP)Powell\'s legacy emerges from his steadfast approach to judging and his resolute effort to respect the views of those with whom he did not agree. He struggled to approach each case without letting his personal ideologies interfere, and by setting aside the attitudes that grew out of his prosperous, southern upbringing. At the same time, he arrived just as America\'s highest court was confronting issues such as affirmative action and abortion for the first time and regularly taking up disputes over the separation of church and state. It often fell to Powell to find the common ground between those justices entrenched on the left and right.
\"For over 15 years on the Supreme Court, he approached each case without an ideological agenda, carefully applying the Constitution, the law and Supreme Court precedent regardless of his own personal views about the case,\" President Clinton said yesterday. \"His opinions were a model of balance and judiciousness.
Powell, who served from 1972 to 1987, greatly valued continuity in the law and believed that once a course had been set, it was dangerous to veer off: \"Stability and moderation are uniquely important to the law,\" he once wrote.
Conservative on Crime
He generally sided with the court\'s conservatives on business and criminal cases, believing that the balance had tipped too far in favor of criminal defendants. But he consistently voted against the Nixon administration, and then the Reagan administration, when the court found a constitutional right to abortion and when it laid out the path for the use of affirmative action in higher education.In that landmark case, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, Powell wrote the majority opinion allowing colleges and universities to consider race among other factors in when deciding which students to admit. And he found the middle ground that allowed schools to take race into account for diversity, but also forofferding schools to set aside a specific number of slots for racial minorities.
Voted Against Nixon
Powell also played a critical role in the court\'s unanimous 1974 decision forcing Nixon to turn over White House tapes relating to Watergate but ensuring that the president\'s claim of executive privilege not be rejected completely. Powell believed in a strong executive and did not want one difficult case to undermine future presidents\' power.He was the pivotal, fifth vote when the court in 1986 ruled that consenting adults have no constitutional right of privacy that allows them to engage in homosexual acts; and Powell was the author of a 1987 decision rejecting arguments that a state\'s capital punishment was discriminatory simply because statistics suggested blacks were more likely to get the death penalty than whites. After he stepped down from the bench, Powell said he regretted both of these positions.
\"I think I probably made a mistake in that one,\" he said specifically of the Georgia anti-sodomy law case known as Bowers v. Hardwick, observing that the decision was inconsistent with the right of privacy articulated in Roe v. Wade.
Powell strived to restrain the power of the federal courts, scrupulously respecting the lines separating the elected branches and the state governments from the judiciary. Uncomfortable with novel theories of constitutional law, he took pride in an ideology-free approach to the cases and issues confronting the court.
Such judicial pragmatism lingers today in the approaches of Justices Sandra Day O\'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy, the latter of whom succeeded Powell, after the bruising Senate confirmation fight over Robert H. Bork.
Just as experienced Supreme Court litigators today often focus their arguments toward winning the sentiments of those swing vote justices, in the 1970s and \'80s Powell was the justice to woo. Lawyers believed that if they could win over Powell, their argument would inevitably attract at least four other justices. Powell, more so than O\'Connor and Kennedy today, was also known as a consensus builder.
On the court, and in his career as a partner in one of Richmond\'s most prominent law firms, as president of the American Bar Association and as head of the Richmond School Board during a time when it was attempting to move away from segregation, Powell was known as a \"lawyer\'s lawyer,\" recoiling from extremes and searching out the middle ground.
In a similar vein, among justices, lawyers, reporters and court employees of every level, his kindness and good manners were legendary.
University of Virginia law professor John C. Jeffries Jr., who wrote a biography of Powell, said the justice gave real weight to the views of both sides at a time of ideological showdowns. Conservatives on the court then, led by Warren E. Burger and William H. Rehnquist, were typically pitted against liberal bulwarks William J. Brennan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall.
\"He was a good listener,\" Jeffries reiterated yesterday. \"That was a matter of style; he was a gentleman. But more than that. He sincerely was respectful of the views of others.\"
But Powell was a reluctant appointee. He turned down Nixon for the job in 1969, and in 1972, after he had donned the robes, said: \"The truth is that I\'d rather be a lawyer than a judge. I was never in any doubt as a lawyer as to which side I was on. I really prefer to be competitive rather than neutral, detached and disinterested.\"
He was 64 when he was appointed to the high court and remained concerned about his neutrality throughout his tenure.
Washington lawyer and former Powell law clerk David Stewart recalled in an interview: \"I remember him saying, \'David – he always addressed you by your name – David, you have no idea how hard it is to keep an open mind when you\'re 72 years old.\' He was absolutely a creature of his upbringing and attitudes. And he did not think it was right to give voice to those attitudes. He tried to have an open mind.\"
When Powell retired after 15 years, Nixon wrote a letter apparently without bitterness over Powell\'s vote in the Watergate tapes case or other issues with which the two parted company. Reprinted in the Jeffries biography, the longhand letter said: \"Dear Lewis, When you were reluctant to accept appointment to the Supreme Court because of your age I observed that ten years of Lewis Powell on the Court was worth 20 years for anyone else. Your superb service has eloquently demonstrated that I was right. All Americans are in your debt. Sincerely, Dick Nixon.\"
After his retirement in 1987, Powell continued to come to his chambers at the Supreme Court and to hear cases for the Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. His health slowly declined and in 1997 he closed out his chambers for good.
Chief Justice Rehnquist, who joined the court on the same January day in 1972 that Powell did, said in a statement yesterday, \"He was the very embodiment of \'judicial temperament\'; receptive to the ideas of his colleagues, fair to the parties to the case, but ultimately relying on his own seasoned judgment.\"
Powell was born Sept. 19, 1907, into a prosperous Suffolk, Va., family and attended private schools. His father was a successful businessman and his mother a homemaker. He earned a bachelor\'s degree from Washington and Lee University in 1929 and a law degree there in 1931. The following year, he earned a master\'s degree in law from Harvard Law School.
Powell returned to Richmond and entered private law practice, settling with the prestigious firm of Hunton Williams, described as \"not just part of the establishment but the establishment itself.\" In 1936 he married Josephine Rucker, daughter of a prominent physician. They eventually had three daughters and a son.
During World War II, Powell joined the Army Air Corps intelligence unit and worked as part of a team that deciphered German military communications.
\"If you\'d asked him what he cared most about in his life, he would say World War II,\" biographer Jeffries said in an interview. \"He was a very patriotic man, not in the flag-waving sense but in that he had a strong conviction that the United States was the world\'s best hope for freedom.\"
After the war, Powell returned to the Richmond law firm and proceeded to build a largely corporate clientele. He would later join the boards of directors of several major companies, and accumulate a fortune in personal investments. This background would make him one of the justices most experienced in business and corporate affairs but it would also open him to criticism by liberal court observers that he was too sympathetic to business.
Powell developed a deep friendship with Virginia Sen. Harry F. Byrd and served as chairman of the Richmond School Board from 1952 to 1961. Soon after he joined the school board, the Supreme Court issued its ruling in Brown v Board of Education, declaring segregated school systems unconstitutional. Virginia, like other southern states, operated a dual school system.
Led by Byrd and his allies, the state embarked on a policy of \"massive resistance\" to desegregation, determining that it would close down schools rather than integrate them. But Powell would not be part of it. \"I was honestly devoted to the old gentleman,\" Powell said of Byrd years later. \"The first political speech I ever made was for him back in 1946. But I disagreed completely with the massive resistance policy. I thought it would destroy the public schools.\"
Led Bar Association
Powell first came to national prominence in 1964, when he was elected president of the American Bar Association. In that role, he continued to win a reputation for moderation, refusing to accept a label on either side of the political spectrum.Powell was first approached about the Supreme Court in 1969, when the Nixon administration was looking for a southern justice to replace Abe Fortas, who had resigned under a cloud. Though Powell was a lifelong Democrat, Nixon knew he was nonetheless a strong believe in law enforcement and saw in Powell a chance to reverse an era of rulings favoring criminal defendants.
Yet in an extraordinary action for a lawyer, Powell asked that his name not be considered for the nomination, in part because he feared a Senate battle over the appointment of a southerner and in part because he enjoyed his life in Richmond, his lucrative law practice, his civic activities and clubs, and his wide circle of friends.
Two years later, when Justice Hugo L. Black retired, Nixon again asked Powell to join the court. This time he accepted, but with deep misgivings. \"I am primarily a lawyer,\" he said then. \"I would rather play in the game than be the umpire.\"
But, he said, \"if you\'re asked by the president of the United States to go on the Supreme Court, one doesn\'t say \'no.\' \" He was named at the same time that Nixon sought to appoint Rehnquist, then an assistant attorney general, to the court.
The appointment of Rehnquist, already known for his strong conservative views, caused far greater controversy. Roy Wilkins, then executive director of the NAACP, spoke out against the Rehnquist nomination but said: \"I am not here to say nay or yea for Lewis Powell. ... It appears Powell is less objectionable [than Rehnquist] on the grounds of race. He seems a philosophical gentleman who has won many honors in the legal profession.\"
Powell was confirmed by an 89 to 1 vote, with only then-Sen. Fred Harris (D-Okla.) dissenting, saying he thought Powell was \"an elitist\" who lacked compassion for \"little people.\" Powell was sworn in on Jan. 7, 1972, the first Virginian on the court since before the Civil War.
Powell, while maintaining his home in Richmond, took a small apartment with his wife in Washington. From the beginning, he said he found the court\'s regimen and isolation hard to accept. \"I do not enjoy being away from Richmond, my friends of a lifetime and my home. ... I do not enjoy working 6½ days a week and almost every night at a time when I had planned to be tapering off,\" he said in one speech, acknowledging however, \"there are compensations which appeal to any lawyer who is proud of his profession. The Supreme Court is an awesome place.\"
Powell once said his wife, Josephine, read to him aloud at night before bedtime. It soothed him, he said, and kept him from waking up in the middle of the night wondering how he should vote on a case. (Josephine Powell died in 1996.)
Not Easily Labeled
Early on the bench, Powell began making clear that his views could not easily be labeled. He held fast to his beliefs in the importance of criminal laws, signing onto decisions that limited the so-called exclusionary rule that kept illegally seized evidence out of trials. He also voted to ease limits on police interrogations of suspects.But by the early and mid-\'80s, as the court was moving to the right with the addition of Reagan appointees, Powell\'s votes stymied the Reagan judicial revolution.
Powell wrote a 1983 opinion strongly affirming Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion, and in 1986 cast the decisive vote when the court again, in the face of attacks by the Reagan administration, upheld Roe. The latter decision struck down a Pennsylvania law intended to discourage women from having abortions.
Powell also was the key vote in 1985 when the court rejected New York\'s policy of sending public school teachers into religious schools to teach disadvantaged students, and he voted with the majority when it struck down moment-of-silence laws intended to bring back prayer to the nation\'s public schools.
Perhaps one of his most known majority opinions was in the landmark 1978 case involving racial quotas in a California medical school admissions policy. He took a middle position, joined in separate parts of his opinion by justices on the left, then on the right.
\"[T]he state has a substantial interest that legitimately may be served by a properly devised admissions program involving the competitive consideration of race and ethnic origin,\" he wrote.
He also penned the majority opinion in a sharply divided 1982 case over whether presidents can be sued for monetary damages when they break the law or violate citizens\' constitutional rights while in office. (This differs from the recent Paula Jones lawsuit against President Clinton, which related to allegations of personal misconduct before Clinton entered the White House.) Powell\'s opinion is filled with concern for a president who might be diverted from his official duties by concern for private lawsuits: \"Because of the singular importance of the president\'s duties, diversion of his energies by concern with private lawsuits would raise unique risks to the effective functioning of government.\"
Powell would rue one of his most controversial positions. He was the author of a 1987 five-justice ruling rejecting arguments that a state\'s capital punishment system be struck down because statistics suggested blacks were more likely to get the death penalty than whites. He said he regretted that decision and declared that he had come to think that capital punishment should be abolished.
Retired in \'87
Powell\'s retirement in June 1987, at a time when the court was sharply divided, set off a fierce confirmation battle. Reagan\'s first nominee, Bork, was rejected by the Senate. Then Reagan\'s second choice, appeals court Judge Douglas Ginsburg withdrew his name before his official nomination after it became public that he had used drugs as a college student and later as a professor at Harvard. In the end Kennedy, a California federal appellate court judge, took the seat, helping to move the court more to the right.Kennedy said in a statement yesterday: \"His dedication to the law and his marvelous demeanor are a splendid legacy to all of us who follow him.\"Struggling to balance law’s tradition against an evolving society, Justice Powell took his judicial dilemma to the chambers of the Supreme Court at a time when balance was sorely needed. Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., was born on September 19, 1907, to Mary Gwathmey and Lewis F. Powell. The first of four children, Powell was a well-mannered, quiet boy who excelled at his studies. The Powells moved to a nice neighborhood in Richmond in 1908, though there were no schools nearby. Powell began his education with an elderly lady who taught children in her home. After three years of education, he was able to attend fourth grade when the trolley lines opened to allow river passage. Though Powell was his mother’s favorite child, he fought hard to earn his father’s favor. His father made him work every summer to teach responsibility, and he bought a cow to teach him discipline. Every morning Powell had to feed her and milk her upon arriving home late in the evening. Powell later stated that one of the happiest moments of his youth was when he came home to find the cow dead. Though he and his father had a tense relationship, he possessed the same fierce ambition that led his father to be a successful businessman.
In 1925 Powell set out to attend Washington and Lee. He became president of his fraternity, managing editor of the student newspaper, and a member of the yearbook staff. His major was in commerce, but he also studied law. Powell had always planned on becoming a lawyer because he viewed their roles as shaping history. He graduated in June 1929 magna cum laude and continued working towards his law degree. He noted mostly judicial decisions and the rules they stood for rather than the context in which they were decided or carried out. In June of 1931, he graduated first from law school. Following his father’s wishes, who was disappointed in his choice of Washington and Lee, Powell went on to Harvard for a year to earn a Master’s in Law. The experience was quite different than that of Washington and Lee. Powell spent most of his time involved in his studies, forfeiting any social life. He took a class with Felix Frankfurter, and his fellow classmates admired his legal mind. From what he learned at the two institutions, Powell left with a tension between respect for authority and a need for change that defined his judicial career.
Upon graduation, Powell took a job in Richmond with Christian, Barton & Parker. He was given much responsibility, which allowed for T. Justin Moore to offer him a job at Hunton, Williams, Anderson, Gay & Moore after admiring his presentation in court. On January 1, 1935, he joined one of the best firms in the nation. After only three years, Powell was made partner.
Powell began dating Josephine Pierce Rucker, the daughter of the doctor who delivered his younger twin brothers. After a lackluster first date long before, the two hit it off and were married on May 2, 1936. He and Josephine later had four children together.
In 1941, Powell volunteered for the Army Air Forces as a non-flier. He was one of ten honor graduates in the program. In 1944, Powell was promoted to major; a month later, he was assigned to the Military Intelligence Service, War Department. After the war ended, Powell returned to his firm. He became involved in the American Bar Association, which earned him many contacts.
Powell was involved in local business and political affairs. He served on boards of education at a time when there were strong demands to resist racial integration. His firm handled one of the five cases that was grouped together under the name Brown v. Board of Education. He felt that it was wrongly decided. This was evident in his lack of progress in enforcing the decision, stating that new schools would not accelerate racial mixing. African-Americans weren’t admitted into white schools in Richmond until 1960. In 1964, Powell was elected in an uncontested election for ABA president. There, he rose to the top of his profession as he called for comprehensive reform of legal ethics, enforcement of standards in the administration of criminal law, and the expansion of legal services for the poor.
In 1971, Nixon needed to fill Hugo Black’s position on the Supreme Court. On January 6, 1972, Powell was sworn in as an Associate Justice to the Supreme Court. With a Supreme Court in balance ideologically, Powell was cast in the middle of several important issues during his tenure as a moderate. His vote decided the Court\'s first confrontations with abortion and affirmative action, and his stance in the Court’s center made him the decisive voice in many cases. Powell was on the winning side of about thirty major decisions; more than any other justice. His stance on abortion cases prevailed in all eighteen of the cases he heard.
Powell got along well with the other justices. Though he leaned towards acceptance and conformity, he sometimes viewed law as more of a tradition rather than an instrument of change. Powell was well respected, and upon retiring in 1987, several of his colleagues expressed their great sadness at losing one of the “few great justices.”Lewis F. Powell, Jr., in full Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr., (born Sept. 19, 1907, Suffolk, Va., U.S.—died August 25, 1998, Richmond, Va.), associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1972–87).
Powell was the eldest child of Louis Powell, a businessman, and Mary Gwaltney Powell. Educated at McGuire’s University School, a private academy that prepared students for admission to the University of Virginia, Powell instead attended Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Va., where he was elected student body president and received bachelor’s (1929) and law (1931) degrees. He then earned a master’s degree in law from the Harvard Law School in 1932 and joined a Richmond law firm that same year. In 1935 he moved to a more prestigious Richmond law firm, where he was made a partner in 1938.
Powell volunteered for the U.S. Army Air Force during World War II, serving in both combat and intelligence positions. After the war he renewed his law practice and served in several civic posts. As chairman of the public school board in Richmond (1952–61), he began the process of integrating the schools—emerging as a conservative opponent of politicians who endorsed “massive resistance” to avoid integration—while other school districts in Virginia were experiencing bitter disputes. He also served on the state board of education (1961–69), including a term as president in 1968–69, and as president of the American Bar Association from 1964 to 1965.
Widely respected in legal circles, the thoughtful, pragmatic, and conciliatory Powell was nominated in October 1971 by Pres. Richard M. Nixon to fill the seat on the Supreme Court being vacated by Justice Hugo L. Black. He was easily confirmed (89–1) by the Senate on Dec. 6, 1971, and he took his seat on the court in January 1972. Powell was one of the more conservative members of the court during the 1970s and early ’80s, but he came to occupy a key centrist position as Pres. Ronald Reagan’s appointments shifted the court’s composition in a conservative direction. Powell took a moderate-to-liberal stance on such issues as legalized abortion (e.g., he supported abortion rights in Roe v. Wade [1973] but also later endorsed a Missouri law that required minors to receive parental consent when seeking an abortion and ruled that states did not have to fund abortions for poor women), separation of church and state, and civil rights questions, but he was basically a conservative on matters of crime and law enforcement. He also voted with the majority in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986) to uphold Georgia’s prohibition against sodomy (though he wrote that severe punishment might violate the Eighth Amendment’s cruel and unusual punishment clause). Among his most well-known decisions was Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), in which Powell led the court in ruling that affirmative action was constitutional as a mechanism to achieve diversity, though the court rejected the use of strict numerical quotas as a means to that end.
Owing to uncertain health, Powell retired in 1987. Until 1996 Powell sat as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Richmond.Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. (September 19, 1907 – August 25, 1998) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving from 1971 to 1987. Powell compiled a conservative record on the Court and cultivated a reputation as a swing vote with a penchant for compromise.
Born in Suffolk, Virginia, he graduated from both Washington and Lee Law School and Harvard Law School and served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He worked for a large law firm in Richmond, Virginia, focusing on corporate law and representing clients such as the Tobacco Institute. In 1971, President Richard Nixon appointed Powell to succeed Associate Justice Hugo Black. He retired from the Court during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, and was eventually succeeded by Anthony Kennedy.
His tenure largely overlapped with that of Chief Justice Warren Burger, and Powell was often a key swing vote on the Burger Court. His majority opinions include First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti and McCleskey v. Kemp, and he wrote an influential opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. He notably joined the majority in cases such as United States v. Nixon, Roe v. Wade, Plyler v. Doe, and Bowers v. Hardwick.Contents1 Early life2 Military service3 Legal career4 Virginia government5 Powell Memorandum6 Supreme Court tenure7 Retirement8 See also9 References10 External linksEarly lifePowell was born in Suffolk, Virginia, the son of Mary Lewis (Gwathmey) and Louis Franklin Powell Sr.[3] Powell set out to attend Washington and Lee University where he became president of his fraternity, managing editor of the student newspaper, and a member of the yearbook staff. His major was in commerce, but he also studied law. Powell had always planned on becoming a lawyer because he viewed their roles as shaping history. He graduated in 1929 with a B.A. magna cum laude. Powell would later attend Washington and Lee Law School where he graduated first in his class in 1931. He then received a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School in 1932.[4] His LL.M. thesis at Harvard was entitled \"Relation between the Virginia Court of Appeals and the State Corporation Commission.\"[5] Along with Sherman Minton, Powell is one of two U.S. Supreme Court justices to have earned an LL.M. degree.[6]
He was elected president of the student body as an undergraduate with the help of Mosby Perrow Jr., and the two served together on the Virginia State Board of Education in the 1960s.[7] Powell was a member of Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity and the Sigma Society.[8] At a leadership conference, he met Edward R. Murrow, and they became close friends.[9]
In 1936, he married Josephine Pierce Rucker with whom he had three daughters and one son. She died in 1996.
Military serviceDuring World War II, he first tried to join the US Navy. After he was rejected because of poor eyesight, he joined the US Army Air Forces as an Intelligence officer. After receiving his commission as a First Lieutenant in 1942, he completed training at bases near Miami, Florida and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was then assigned to the 319th Bombardment Group, which moved to England later that year. He served in North Africa during Operation Torch and was later assigned to the Headquarters of the Northwest African Air Forces. There, Powell served in Sicily during the Allied invasion of Sicily.
In August 1943, he was assigned to the Intelligence staff of the Army Air Forces in Washington, D.C. Slated for assignment as an instructor at the facility near Harrisburg, he worked instead on several special projects for the AAF headquarters until February 1944. He was then assigned to the Intelligence staff of the Department of War and then the Intelligence staff of United States Strategic Air Forces in Europe. Powell was assigned to the Ultra project, as one of the officers designated to monitor the use of intercepted Axis communications. He worked in England and in the Mediterranean Theater and ensured that the use of Ultra information was in compliance with the laws and rules of war, and that the use of such information did not reveal the source, which would have alerted that the code had been broken. He advanced through the ranks to Colonel, and received the Legion of Merit, Bronze Star Medal, and French Croix de Guerre with bronze palm. He was discharged in October 1945.[10]
Legal careerIn 1941, Powell served as Chairman of the American Bar Association\'s Young Lawyers Division.[11]
Powell was a partner for over a quarter of a century at Hunton, Williams, Gay, Powell and Gibson, a large Virginia law firm, with its primary office in Richmond (now known as Hunton & Williams LLP). Powell practiced primarily in the areas of corporate law (especially in the field of mergers and acquisitions) and in railway litigation law. He had been a board member of Philip Morris from 1964 until his court appointment in 1971 and had acted as a contact point for the tobacco industry with the Virginia Commonwealth University. Through his law firm, Powell represented the Tobacco Institute and various tobacco companies in numerous law cases.
Powell served as Chair of the American Bar Association\'s Standing Committee on the Economics of Law Practice from 1961 to 1962, which later evolved into the current ABA Law Practice Division. During his tenure as Chair of the Committee, The Lawyers Handbook was first published and distributed to all attorneys who joined the ABA that year. In its preface, Powell wrote, \"The basic concept of freedom under law, which underlies our entire structure of government, can only be sustained by a strong and independent bar. It is plainly in the public interest that the economic health of the legal profession be safeguarded. One of the means toward this end is to improve the efficiency and productivity of lawyers.\"[12]
He was subsequently elected President of the ABA from 1964 to 1965. Powell led the way in attempting to provide legal services to the poor, and he made a key decision to cooperate with the federal government\'s Legal Services Program. Powell was also involved in the development of Colonial Williamsburg, where he was both a trustee and general counsel.
Virginia governmentPowell also played an important role in local community affairs. He served on the Richmond School Board from 1951 and was Chairman from 1952 to 1961. Powell presided over the school board at a time when the Commonwealth of Virginia was locked in a campaign of defiance against the Supreme Court\'s decision in Brown v. Board of Education. Powell\'s law firm had represented one of the defendant school districts in the case that was decided by the Supreme Court under the \"Brown\" label. Powell did not take any part in his law firm\'s representation of that client school district. The lawsuit, Davis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County, later became one of the five cases decided under the caption Brown v. Board of Education before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954.
The Richmond School Board had no authority at the time to force integration, however, as control over attendance policies had been transferred to the state government. Powell, like most white Southern leaders of his day, did not speak out against the state\'s defiance, but fostered a close relationship with many black leaders, such as civil rights lawyer Oliver Hill, some of whom offered key support for Powell\'s Supreme Court nomination. Powell swore in Virginia\'s first black governor, Douglas Wilder, in 1990.
From 1961 to 1969, Powell served on the Virginia Board of Education; he was Chairman from 1968 to 1969.[13]
Powell MemorandumOn August 23, 1971, prior to accepting Nixon\'s nomination to the Supreme Court, Powell was commissioned by his neighbor, Eugene B. Sydnor Jr., a close friend and education director of the US Chamber of Commerce, to write a confidential memorandum titled \"Attack on the American Free Enterprise System,\" an anti-Communist and anti-New Deal blueprint for conservative business interests to retake America for the chamber.[14][15] It was based in part on Powell\'s reaction to the work of activist Ralph Nader, whose 1965 exposé on General Motors, Unsafe at Any Speed, put a focus on the auto industry putting profit ahead of safety, which triggered the American consumer movement. Powell saw it as an undermining of Americans\' faith in enterprise and another step in the slippery slope of socialism.[14] His experiences as a corporate lawyer and a director on the board of Phillip Morris from 1964 until his appointment to the Supreme Court made him a champion of the tobacco industry who railed against the growing scientific evidence linking smoking to cancer deaths.[14] He argued, unsuccessfully, that tobacco companies\' First Amendment rights were being infringed when news organizations were not giving credence to the cancer denials of the industry. That was the point where Powell began to focus on the media as biased agents of socialism.[14]
The memo called for corporate America to become more aggressive in molding society\'s thinking about business, government, politics and law in the US. It sparked wealthy heirs of earlier American Industrialists like Richard Mellon Scaife; the Earhart Foundation, money which came from an oil fortune; and the Smith Richardson Foundation, from the cough medicine dynasty;[14] to use their private charitable foundations, which did not have to report their political activities, to join the Carthage Foundation, founded by Scaife in 1964[14] to fund Powell\'s vision of a pro-business, anti-socialist, minimalist government-regulated America as it had been in the heyday of early American industrialism, before the Great Depression and the rise of Franklin Roosevelt\'s New Deal.
The Powell Memorandum thus became the blueprint of the rise of the American conservative movement and the formation of a network of influential right-wing think tanks and lobbying organizations, such as The Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) as well as inspiring the US Chamber of Commerce to become far more politically active.[16][17] CUNY professor David Harvey traces the rise of neoliberalism in the US to this memo.[18][19]
Powell argued, \"The most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism came from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians.\" In the memorandum, Powell advocated \"constant surveillance\" of textbook and television content, as well as a purge of left-wing elements. He named consumer advocate Nader as the chief antagonist of American business. Powell urged conservatives to take a sustained media-outreach program; including funding scholars who believe in the free enterprise system, publishing books and papers from popular magazines to scholarly journals and influencing public opinion.[20]
This memo foreshadowed a number of Powell\'s court opinions, especially First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, which shifted the direction of First Amendment law by declaring that corporate financial influence of elections by independent expenditures should be protected with the same vigor as individual political speech. Much of the future Court opinion in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission relied on the same arguments raised in Bellotti.
Though written confidentially for Sydnor at the Chamber of Commerce, it was discovered by Washington Post columnist Jack Anderson, who reported on its content a year later (after Powell had joined the Supreme Court). Anderson alleged that Powell was trying to undermine the democratic system; however, in terms of business\' view of itself in relation to government and public interest groups, the memo only conveyed the thinking among businessmen at the time. The real contribution of the memo, instead, was its emphasis on institution-building, particularly updating the Chamber\'s efforts to influence federal policy. Here, it was a major force in motivating the Chamber and other groups to modernize their efforts to lobby the federal government. Following the memo\'s directives, conservative foundations greatly increased, pouring money into think-tanks. This rise of conservative philanthropy led to the conservative intellectual movement and its increasing influence over mainstream political discourse, starting in the 1970s and \'80s, and due chiefly to the works of the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation.[21]
Supreme Court tenureIn 1969, Nixon asked him to join the Supreme Court, but Powell turned him down. In 1971, Nixon asked him again. Powell was unsure, but Nixon and his Attorney General, John N. Mitchell, persuaded him that joining the Court was his duty to the nation.[22] One of the primary concerns that Powell had was the effect leaving his law firm and joining the high court would have on his personal financial status, as he enjoyed a very lucrative private practice at his law firm. Another of Powell\'s major concerns was that as a corporate attorney, he would be unfamiliar with many of the issues that would come before the Supreme Court, which, like now, heard very few corporate law cases. Powell feared that would place him at a disadvantage and make it unlikely that he would be able to influence his colleagues.
Nixon nominated Powell and William Rehnquist to the Court on the same day, October 21, 1971.[23] Powell took over the seat of Hugo Black after being confirmed by the Senate 89-1 on December 7, 1971 (the lone \"nay\" came from Oklahoma Democrat Fred R. Harris). On the day of Powell\'s swearing-in, when Rehnquist\'s wife Nan asked Josephine Powell if this was the most exciting day of her life, Josephine said, \"No, it is the worst day of my life. I am about to cry.\"[24]
Lewis Powell served from January 7, 1972 until June 26, 1987, when he retired from the Court. Powell compiled a conservative record on the Court and cultivated a reputation as a swing vote with a penchant for compromise.[25]
Powell was among the 7-2 majority who legalized abortion in the United States in Roe v. Wade. Powell\'s pro-choice stance on abortion stemmed from an incident during his Richmond law firm, when the girlfriend of one of Powell\'s office staff bled to death from an illegal self-induced abortion.[26]
In Coker v. Georgia, a convicted murderer escaped from prison and in the course of committing an armed robbery and other offenses, raped an adult woman. The State of Georgia sentenced the rapist to death. Justice Powell, acknowledging that the woman had been raped, expressed the view that \"the victim [did not] sustain serious or lasting injury\"[27] and voted to set the death penalty aside. In that same case, Powell also wrote that \"for the rape victim, life may not be nearly so happy as it was, but it is not over and normally is not beyond repair.\"[28]
His opinion in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), joined by no other justice in full, represented a compromise between the opinions of Justice William J. Brennan, who, joined by three other justices, would have upheld affirmative action programs under a lenient judicial test, and the opinion of John Paul Stevens, joined by three other justices, who would have struck down the affirmative action program at issue in the case under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Powell\'s opinion striking down the law urged \"strict scrutiny\" to be applied to affirmative action programs but hinted that some affirmative action programs might pass Constitutional muster. Powell, who dissented in the case of Furman v. Georgia (1972), striking down capital punishment statutes, was a key mover behind the Court\'s compromise opinion in Gregg v. Georgia (1976), which allowed the return of capital punishment but only with procedural safeguards.
In the controversial case of Snepp v. U.S. (1980), the Court issued a per curiam upholding the lower court\'s imposition of a constructive trust upon former CIA agent Frank Snepp and its requirement for preclearance of all his published writings with the CIA for the rest of his life. In 1997, Snepp gained access to the files of Justices Thurgood Marshall (who had already died) and William J. Brennan Jr. (who voluntarily granted Snepp access) and confirmed his suspicion that Powell had been the author of the per curiam opinion. Snepp later pointed out that Powell had misstated the factual record and had not reviewed the actual case file (Powell was in the habit of writing opinions based on the briefs alone) and that the only justice who even looked at the case file was John Paul Stevens, who relied upon it in composing his dissent.[29] From his days in counterintelligence during World War II, Powell believed in the need for government secrecy and urged the same position on his colleagues during the Court\'s consideration of 1974\'s United States v. Nixon.
Powell wrote the majority opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978), which overturned a Massachusetts law restricting corporate contributions to referendum campaigns not directly related to their business.[30]
Powell joined the 5-4 majority in Plyler v. Doe that a Texas law forofferding undocumented immigrant children from public education was unconstitutional.[31] Powell had a fairly conservative record in deciding cases, but joined the Court\'s four liberal Justices to declare the law unconstitutional.
Powell was the swing vote in Bowers v. Hardwick 478 U.S. 186 (1986), in which the Court upheld Georgia\'s sodomy laws. He was reportedly conflicted over how to vote. A conservative clerk, Michael W. Mosman, advised him to uphold the ban, and Powell, who believed he had never met a gay person, not realizing that one of his own clerks was a closeted homosexual, voted to uphold Georgia\'s sodomy law. However, he, in a concurring opinion, expressed concern at the length of the prison terms prescribed by the law.[32] The Court, 17 years later, expressly overruled Bowers in Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. 558 (2003). In 1990, after his retirement from the Court, he said, \"I think I made a mistake in the Hardwick case,\" marking one of the few times a justice expressed regret for one of his previous votes.[33]
Powell also expressed post-retirement regret over his majority opinion in McCleskey v. Kemp (1987), where he voted to uphold the death penalty against a study that demonstrated that, except as punishment for the most violent of crimes, people who killed whites were significantly more likely to receive the death penalty as punishment for their crimes than people who killed blacks. In an interview with his biographer, he even stated that he would abolish the death penalty altogether.[34]
RetirementPowell was nearly 80 years old when he retired from his position as Supreme Court justice. His career on the bench was summed up by Gerald Gunther, a professor of constitutional law at Stanford Law School, as \"truly distinguished\" because of his \"qualities of temperament and character,\" which \"made it possible for him, more than any contemporary, to perform his tasks in accordance with the modest, restrained, yet creative model of judging.\"[35]
He was succeeded by Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy was the third nominee for his position. The first, Robert Bork, was not confirmed by the United States Senate. The second, Douglas H. Ginsburg, withdrew his name from consideration after admitting to having smoked marijuana both as a college undergraduate and with his students while a law professor.
Following his retirement from the high court, he sat regularly on various United States Courts of Appeals around the country.
In 1990, Douglas Wilder asked Powell to swear him in as governor of Virginia, and the first African-American governor in the United States.[36]
Powell died at his home in the Windsor Farms area of Richmond, Virginia, of pneumonia, at 4:30 in the morning of August 25, 1998, at the age of 90. He is buried in Richmond\'s Hollywood Cemetery.
In her 2002 book, The Majesty of the Law, Justice Sandra Day O\'Connor wrote, \"For those who seek a model of human kindness, decency, exemplary behavior, and integrity, there will never be a better man.\"
Powell\'s personal and official papers were donated to Washington and Lee University School of Law, where they are open for research, subject to certain restrictions. A wing at Sydney Lewis Hall, home of W&L Law, which houses his papers, is named for him.
J. Harvie Wilkinson, currently a judge on the Fourth Circuit, was a law clerk for Justice Powell. Wilkinson later wrote a book titled Serving Justice: A Supreme Court Clerk\'s View describing the experience.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed into law an act of Congress renaming the Federal courthouse at Richmond, Virginia, in his honor, the Lewis F. Powell Jr. United States Courthouse.
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS)[2] is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. Established pursuant to Article III of the U.S. Constitution in 1789, it has original jurisdiction over a narrow range of cases, including suits between two or more states and those involving ambassadors. It also has ultimate (and largely discretionary) appellate jurisdiction over all federal court and state court cases that involve a point of federal constitutional or statutory law. The Court has the power of judicial review, the ability to invalidate a statute for violating a provision of the Constitution or an executive act for being unlawful.[3] However, it may act only within the context of a case in an area of law over which it has jurisdiction. The court may decide cases having political overtones, but it has ruled that it does not have power to decide nonjusticiable political questions.
As set by the Judiciary Act of 1869, the Court consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight associate justices. Each justice has lifetime tenure, meaning they remain on the Court until they resign, retire, die, or are removed from office.[4] When a vacancy occurs, the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, appoints a new justice.
Each justice has a single vote in deciding the cases argued before it; the chief justice\'s vote carries no more weight than any other. When the chief justice is in the majority, he decides who writes the opinion of the court; otherwise, the senior justice in the majority assigns the task of writing the opinion.
In modern discourse, justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation.[citation needed] While a far greater number[vague] of cases in recent history have been decided unanimously, decisions in cases of the highest profile have often come down to just one single vote, exemplifying the justices\' alignment according to these categories.[citation needed]
The Court meets in the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C. Its law enforcement arm is the Supreme Court of the United States Police.[citation needed]Contents1 History1.1 Earliest beginnings through Marshall1.2 From Taney to Taft1.3 New Deal era1.4 Warren and Burger1.5 Rehnquist and Roberts2 Composition2.1 Size of the court2.2 Appointment and confirmation2.2.1 Recess appointments2.3 Tenure3 Membership3.1 Current justices3.1.1 Length of tenure3.2 Court demographics3.3 Retired justices3.4 Seniority and seating3.5 Salary3.6 Judicial leanings4 Facilities5 Jurisdiction5.1 Justices as circuit justices6 Process6.1 Case selection6.2 Oral argument6.3 Supreme Court bar6.4 Decision6.5 Published opinions6.5.1 Citations to published opinions7 Institutional powers and constraints8 Law clerks8.1 Politicization of the Court9 Criticism9.1 Judicial activism9.2 Failing to protect individual rights9.3 Too much power9.4 Courts are poor check on executive power9.5 Federal versus state power9.6 Secretive proceedings9.7 Judicial interference in political disputes9.8 Not choosing enough cases to review9.9 Lifetime tenure9.10 Accepting gifts10 See also10.1 Landmark Supreme Court decisions (selection)11 References11.1 Bibliography12 Further reading13 External linksHistoryMain article: History of the Supreme Court of the United StatesIt was while debating the separation of powers between the legislative and executive departments that delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention established the parameters for the national judiciary. Creating a \"third branch\" of government was a novel idea; in the English tradition, judicial matters had been treated as an aspect of royal (executive) authority. Early on, the delegates who were opposed to having a strong central government argued that national laws could be enforced by state courts, while others, including James Madison, advocated for a national judicial authority consisting of various tribunals chosen by the national legislature. It was also proposed that the judiciary should have a role in checking the executive\'s power to veto or revise laws. In the end, the framers compromised by sketching only a general outline of the judiciary, vesting federal judicial power in \"one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish\".[5][6] They delineated neither the exact powers and prerogatives of the Supreme Court nor the organization of the judicial branch as a whole.The Royal Exchange, New York City, first meeting place of the Supreme CourtThe 1st United States Congress provided the detailed organization of a federal judiciary through the Judiciary Act of 1789. The Supreme Court, the country\'s highest judicial tribunal, was to sit in the nation\'s Capital and would initially be composed of a chief justice and five associate justices. The act also divided the country into judicial districts, which were in turn organized into circuits. Justices were required to \"ride circuit\" and hold circuit court twice a year in their assigned judicial district.[7]
Immediately after signing the act into law, President George Washington nominated the following people to serve on the court: John Jay for chief justice and John Rutledge, William Cushing, Robert H. Harrison, James Wilson, and John Blair Jr. as associate justices. All six were confirmed by the Senate on September 26, 1789. Harrison, however, declined to serve. In his place, Washington later nominated James Iredell.[8]
The Supreme Court held its inaugural session from February 2 through February 10, 1790, at the Royal Exchange in New York City, then the U.S. capital.[9] A second session was held there in August 1790.[10] The earliest sessions of the court were devoted to organizational proceedings, as the first cases did not reach it until 1791.[7] When the national capital moved to Philadelphia in 1790, the Supreme Court did so as well. After initially meeting at Independence Hall, the Court established its chambers at City Hall.[11]
Earliest beginnings through MarshallMain articles: Jay Court, Rutledge Court, Ellsworth Court, and Marshall Court
Chief Justice Marshall (1801–1835)Under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth (1789–1801), the Court heard few cases; its first decision was West v. Barnes (1791), a case involving procedure.[12] As the Court initially had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was also made by two-thirds (voting four to two).[13] However, Congress has always allowed less than the court\'s full membership to make decisions, starting with a quorum of four justices in 1789.[14] The court lacked a home of its own and had little prestige,[15] a situation not helped by the era\'s highest-profile case, Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), which was reversed within two years by the adoption of the Eleventh Amendment.[16]
The court\'s power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court (1801–35).[17] Under Marshall, the court established the power of judicial review over acts of Congress,[18] including specifying itself as the supreme expositor of the Constitution (Marbury v. Madison)[19][20] and making several important constitutional rulings that gave shape and substance to the balance of power between the federal government and states (notably, Martin v. Hunter\'s Lessee, McCulloch v. Maryland and Gibbons v. Ogden).[21][22][23][24]
The Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim,[25] a remnant of British tradition,[26] and instead issuing a single majority opinion.[25] Also during Marshall\'s tenure, although beyond the Court\'s control, the impeachment and acquittal of Justice Samuel Chase in 1804–05 helped cement the principle of judicial independence.[27][28]
From Taney to TaftMain articles: Taney Court, Chase Court, Waite Court, Fuller Court, White Court, and Taft CourtThe Taney Court (1836–64) made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Sill, which held that while Congress may not limit the subjects the Supreme Court may hear, it may limit the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts to prevent them from hearing cases dealing with certain subjects.[29] Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford,[30] which helped precipitate the Civil War.[31] In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts (1864–1910) interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution[24] and developed the doctrine of substantive due process (Lochner v. New York;[32] Adair v. United States).[33]
Under the White and Taft Courts (1910–30), the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment had incorporated some guarantees of the Bill of Rights against the states (Gitlow v. New York),[34] grappled with the new antitrust statutes (Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey v. United States), upheld the constitutionality of military conscription (Selective Draft Law Cases)[35] and brought the substantive due process doctrine to its first apogee (Adkins v. Children\'s Hospital).[36]
New Deal eraMain articles: Hughes Court, Stone Court, and Vinson CourtThe Court seatedThe Hughes Court in 1937, photographed by Erich Salomon. Members include Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes (center), Louis Brandeis, Benjamin N. Cardozo, Harlan Stone, Owen Roberts, and the \"Four Horsemen\" Pierce Butler, James Clark McReynolds, George Sutherland, and Willis Van Devanter, who opposed New Deal policies.During the Hughes, Stone, and Vinson Courts (1930–53), the Court gained its own accommodation in 1935[37] and changed its interpretation of the Constitution, giving a broader reading to the powers of the federal government to facilitate President Franklin Roosevelt\'s New Deal (most prominently West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, Wickard v. Filburn, United States v. Darby and United States v. Butler).[38][39][40] During World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens (Korematsu v. United States) and the mandatory pledge of allegiance (Minersville School District v. Gobitis). Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated (West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette), and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend.
Warren and BurgerMain articles: Warren Court and Burger CourtThe Warren Court (1953–69) dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties.[41] It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection (Brown v. Board of Education, Bolling v. Sharpe and Green v. County School Bd.)[42] and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote (Reynolds v. Sims). It created a general right to privacy (Griswold v. Connecticut),[43] limited the role of religion in public school (most prominently Engel v. Vitale and Abington School District v. Schempp),[44][45] incorporated most guarantees of the Bill of Rights against the States—prominently Mapp v. Ohio (the exclusionary rule) and Gideon v. Wainwright (right to appointed counsel),[46][47]—and required that criminal suspects be apprised of all these rights by police (Miranda v. Arizona).[48] At the same time, however, the Court limited defamation suits by public figures (New York Times v. Sullivan) and supplied the government with an unbroken run of antitrust victories.[49]
The Burger Court (1969–86) marked a conservative shift.[50] It also expanded Griswold\'s right to privacy to strike down abortion laws (Roe v. Wade),[51] but divided deeply on affirmative action (Regents of the University of California v. Bakke)[52] and campaign finance regulation (Buckley v. Valeo).[53] It also dithered on the death penalty, ruling first that most applications were defective (Furman v. Georgia),[54] then the death penalty itself was not unconstitutional (Gregg v. Georgia).[54][55][56]
Rehnquist and RobertsMain articles: Rehnquist Court and Roberts Court
Justices of the Supreme Court with President George W. Bush (center), October 2005.The Rehnquist Court (1986–2005) was noted for its revival of judicial enforcement of federalism,[57] emphasizing the limits of the Constitution\'s affirmative grants of power (United States v. Lopez) and the force of its restrictions on those powers (Seminole Tribe v. Florida, City of Boerne v. Flores).[58][59][60][61][62] It struck down single-sex state schools as a violation of equal protection (United States v. Virginia), laws against sodomy as violations of substantive due process (Lawrence v. Texas),[63] and the line item veto (Clinton v. New York), but upheld school vouchers (Zelman v. Simmons-Harris) and reaffirmed Roe\'s restrictions on abortion laws (Planned Parenthood v. Casey).[64] The Court\'s decision in Bush v. Gore, which ended the electoral recount during the presidential election of 2000, was especially controversial.[65][66]
The Roberts Court (2005–present) is regarded as more conservative than the Rehnquist Court.[67][68][69][70] Some of its major rulings have concerned federal preemption (Wyeth v. Levine), civil procedure (Twombly-Iqbal), abortion (Gonzales v. Carhart),[71] climate change (Massachusetts v. EPA), same-sex marriage (United States v. Windsor and Obergefell v. Hodges) and the Bill of Rights, notably in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (First Amendment),[72] Heller-McDonald (Second Amendment)[73] and Baze v. Rees (Eighth Amendment).[74][75]
CompositionSize of the courtArticle III of the United States Constitution does not specify the number of justices. The Judiciary Act of 1789 called for the appointment of six \"judges\". Although an 1801 act would have reduced the size of the court to five members upon its next vacancy, an 1802 act promptly negated the 1801 act, legally restoring the court\'s size to six members before any such vacancy occurred. As the nation\'s boundaries grew, Congress added justices to correspond with the growing number of judicial circuits: seven in 1807, nine in 1837, and ten in 1863.[76]
In 1866, at the behest of Chief Justice Chase, Congress passed an act providing that the next three justices to retire would not be replaced, which would thin the bench to seven justices by attrition. Consequently, one seat was removed in 1866 and a second in 1867. In 1869, however, the Circuit Judges Act returned the number of justices to nine,[77] where it has since remained.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to expand the Court in 1937. His proposal envisioned appointment of one additional justice for each incumbent justice who reached the age of 70 years 6 months and refused retirement, up to a maximum bench of 15 justices. The proposal was ostensibly to ease the burden of the docket on elderly judges, but the actual purpose was widely understood as an effort to \"pack\" the Court with justices who would support Roosevelt\'s New Deal.[78] The plan, usually called the \"court-packing plan\", failed in Congress.[79] Nevertheless, the Court\'s balance began to shift within months when Justice Willis Van Devanter retired and was replaced by Senator Hugo Black. By the end of 1941, Roosevelt had appointed seven justices and elevated Harlan Fiske Stone to Chief Justice.[80]
Appointment and confirmationMain article: Appointment and confirmation to the Supreme Court of the United States
The Roberts Court (October 2018 – present). Front row (left to right): Stephen Breyer, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts (Chief Justice), Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Samuel Alito. Back row (left to right): Neil Gorsuch, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Brett Kavanaugh.The U.S. Constitution states that the President \"shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Judges of the Supreme Court\".[81] Most presidents nominate candidates who broadly share their ideological views, although a justice\'s decisions may end up being contrary to a president\'s expectations. Because the Constitution sets no qualifications for service as a justice, a president may nominate anyone to serve, subject to Senate confirmation.
In modern times, the confirmation process has attracted considerable attention from the press and advocacy groups, which lobby senators to confirm or to reject a nominee depending on whether their track record aligns with the group\'s views. The Senate Judiciary Committee conducts hearings and votes on whether the nomination should go to the full Senate with a positive, negative or neutral report. The committee\'s practice of personally interviewing nominees is relatively recent. The first nominee to appear before the committee was Harlan Fiske Stone in 1925, who sought to quell concerns about his links to Wall Street, and the modern practice of questioning began with John Marshall Harlan II in 1955.[82] Once the committee reports out the nomination, the full Senate considers it. Rejections are relatively uncommon; the Senate has explicitly rejected twelve Supreme Court nominees, most recently Robert Bork, nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.
Although Senate rules do not necessarily allow a negative vote in committee to block a nomination, prior to 2017 a nomination could be blocked by filibuster once debate had begun in the full Senate. President Lyndon B. Johnson\'s nomination of sitting Associate Justice Abe Fortas to succeed Earl Warren as Chief Justice in 1968 was the first successful filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee. It included both Republican and Democratic senators concerned with Fortas\'s ethics. President Donald Trump\'s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the seat left vacant by Antonin Scalia\'s death was the second. Unlike the Fortas filibuster, however, only Democratic Senators voted against cloture on the Gorsuch nomination, citing his perceived conservative judicial philosophy, and the Republican majority\'s prior refusal to take up President Barack Obama\'s nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the vacancy.[83] This led the Republican majority to change the rules and eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations.[84]
Not every Supreme Court nominee has received a floor vote in the Senate. A president may withdraw a nomination before an actual confirmation vote occurs, typically because it is clear that the Senate will reject the nominee; this occurred most recently with President George W. Bush\'s nomination of Harriet Miers in 2006. The Senate may also fail to act on a nomination, which expires at the end of the session. For example, President Dwight Eisenhower\'s first nomination of John Marshall Harlan II in November 1954 was not acted on by the Senate; Eisenhower re-nominated Harlan in January 1955, and Harlan was confirmed two months later. Most recently, as previously noted, the Senate failed to act on the March 2016 nomination of Merrick Garland; the nomination expired in January 2017, and the vacancy was filled by Neil Gorsuch, an appointee of President Trump.[85]
Once the Senate confirms a nomination, the president must prepare and sign a commission, to which the Seal of the Department of Justice must be affixed, before the new justice can take office.[86] The seniority of an associate justice is based on the commissioning date, not the confirmation or swearing-in date.[87] The importance of commissioning is underscored by the case of Edwin M. Stanton. Although appointed to the court on December 19, 1869 by President Ulysses S. Grant and confirmed by the Senate a few days later, Stanton died on Dec 24, prior to receiving his commission. He is not, therefore, considered to have been an actual member of the court.
Before 1981, the approval process of justices was usually rapid. From the Truman through Nixon administrations, justices were typically approved within one month. From the Reagan administration to the present, however, the process has taken much longer. Some believe this is because Congress sees justices as playing a more political role than in the past.[88] According to the Congressional Research Service, the average number of days from nomination to final Senate vote since 1975 is 67 days (2.2 months), while the median is 71 days (or 2.3 months).[89][90]
Recess appointmentsWhen the Senate is in recess, a president may make temporary appointments to fill vacancies. Recess appointees hold office only until the end of the next Senate session (less than two years). The Senate must confirm the nominee for them to continue serving; of the two chief justices and eleven associate justices who have received recess appointments, only Chief Justice John Rutledge was not subsequently confirmed.[91]
No president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has made a recess appointment to the Court, and the practice has become rare and controversial even in lower federal courts.[92] In 1960, after Eisenhower had made three such appointments, the Senate passed a \"sense of the Senate\" resolution that recess appointments to the Court should only be made in \"unusual circumstances\".[93] Such resolutions are not legally binding but are an expression of Congress\'s views in the hope of guiding executive action.[93][94]
The Supreme Court\'s 2014 decision in National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning limited the ability of the President to make recess appointments (including appointments to the Supreme Court); the Court ruled that the Senate decides when the Senate is in session (or in recess). Writing for the Court, Justice Breyer stated, \"We hold that, for purposes of the Recess Appointments Clause, the Senate is in session when it says it is, provided that, under its own rules, it retains the capacity to transact Senate business.\"[95] This ruling allows the Senate to prevent recess appointments through the use of pro-forma sessions.[96]
TenureThe Constitution provides that justices \"shall hold their offices during good behavior\" (unless appointed during a Senate recess). The term \"good behavior\" is understood to mean justices may serve for the remainder of their lives, unless they are impeached and convicted by Congress, resign, or retire.[97] Only one justice has been impeached by the House of Representatives (Samuel Chase, March 1804), but he was acquitted in the Senate (March 1805).[98] Moves to impeach sitting justices have occurred more recently (for example, William O. Douglas was the subject of hearings twice, in 1953 and again in 1970; and Abe Fortas resigned while hearings were being organized in 1969), but they did not reach a vote in the House. No mechanism exists for removing a justice who is permanently incapacitated by illness or injury, but unable (or unwilling) to resign.[99]
Because justices have indefinite tenure, timing of vacancies can be unpredictable. Sometimes vacancies arise in quick succession, as in the early 1970s when Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr. and William Rehnquist were nominated to replace Hugo Black and John Marshall Harlan II, who retired within a week of each other. Sometimes a great length of time passes between nominations, such as the eleven years between Stephen Breyer\'s nomination in 1994 to succeed Harry Blackmun and the nomination of John Roberts in 2005 to fill the seat of Sandra Day O\'Connor (though Roberts\' nomination was withdrawn and resubmitted for the role of Chief Justice after Rehnquist died).
Despite the variability, all but four presidents have been able to appoint at least one justice. William Henry Harrison died a month after taking office, though his successor (John Tyler) made an appointment during that presidential term. Likewise, Zachary Taylor died 16 months after taking office, but his successor (Millard Fillmore) also made a Supreme Court nomination before the end of that term. Andrew Johnson, who became president after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, was denied the opportunity to appoint a justice by a reduction in the size of the Court. Jimmy Carter is the only person elected president to have left office after at least one full term without having the opportunity to appoint a justice. Somewhat similarly, presidents James Monroe, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and George W. Bush each served a full term without an opportunity to appoint a justice, but made appointments during their subsequent terms in office. No president who has served more than one full term has gone without at least one opportunity to make an appointment.
MembershipSee also: List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United StatesCurrent justicesThe Supreme Court consists of a chief justice, currently John Roberts, and eight associate justices. Among the current members of the Court, Clarence Thomas is the longest-serving justice, with a tenure of 10,047 days (27 years, 185 days) as of April 26, 2019; the most recent justice to join the court is Brett Kavanaugh, whose tenure began on October 6, 2018.
Justice /Birthdate and place Appointed by SCV Age at Start date /Length of service Previous position or office(Most recent prior to joining the Court) SucceededStart PresentFile-Official roberts CJ cropped.jpg John RobertsJanuary 27, 1955Buffalo, New York G. W. Bush 78–22 50 64 September 29, 200513 years, 209 days Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (2003–2005) RehnquistClarence Thomas, official SCOTUS portrait, crop.jpg Clarence ThomasJune 23, 1948Pin Point, Georgia G. H. W. Bush 52–48 43 70 October 23, 199127 years, 185 days Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1990–1991) MarshallRuth Bader Ginsburg, official SCOTUS portrait, crop.jpg Ruth Bader GinsburgMarch 15, 1933Brooklyn, New York Clinton 96–3 60 86 August 10, 199325 years, 259 days Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (1980–1993) WhiteStephen Breyer official SCOTUS portrait crop.jpg Stephen BreyerAugust 15, 1938San Francisco, California Clinton 87–9 55 80 August 3, 199424 years, 266 days Chief Judge, Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (1990–1994) BlackmunSamuel Alito official photo (cropped).jpg Samuel AlitoApril 1, 1950Trenton, New Jersey G. W. Bush 58–42 55 69 January 31, 200613 years, 85 days Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1990–2006) O\'ConnorSonia Sotomayor in SCOTUS robe crop.jpg Sonia SotomayorJune 25, 1954The Bronx, New York Obama 68–31 55 64 August 8, 20099 years, 261 days Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1998–2009) SouterElena Kagan-1-1.jpg Elena KaganApril 28, 1960Manhattan, New York Obama 63–37 50 58 August 7, 20108 years, 264 days Solicitor General of the United States (2009–2010) StevensAssociate Justice Neil Gorsuch Official Portrait (cropped 2).jpg Neil GorsuchAugust 29, 1967Denver, Colorado Trump 54–45 49 51 April 10, 20172 years, 16 days Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (2006–2017) ScaliaAssociate Justice Brett Kavanaugh Official Portrait.jpg Brett KavanaughFebruary 12, 1965Washington, D.C. Trump 50–48 53 54 October 6, 2018202 days Circuit Judge, Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (2006–2018) Kennedy Source: [100]Length of tenureThis graphical timeline depicts the length of each current Supreme Court justice\'s tenure (not seniority) on the Court:Court demographicsFurther information: Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United StatesThe Court currently has six male and three female justices. Among the nine justices, there is one African-American (Justice Thomas) and one Hispanic (Justice Sotomayor). Two of the justices were born to at least one immigrant parent: Justice Alito\'s parents were born in Italy,[101][102] and Justice Ginsburg\'s father was born in Russia.[103]
At least five justices are Roman Catholics and three are Jewish. It is unclear whether Neil Gorsuch considers himself a Catholic or an Episcopalian.[104]
Every current justice has an Ivy League background.[105] Four justices are from the state of New York, one is from California, one is from New Jersey, one is from Georgia, one is from Colorado, and one is from Maryland.[106][107] In the 19th century, every justice was a man of European descent (usually Northern European), and almost always Protestant. Diversity concerns focused on geography, to represent all regions of the country, rather than religious, ethnic, or gender diversity.[108]
Historically, most justices have been Protestants, including 36 Episcopalians, 19 Presbyterians, 10 Unitarians, 5 Methodists, and 3 Baptists.[109][110] The first Catholic justice was Roger Taney in 1836,[111] and 1916 saw the appointment of the first Jewish justice, Louis Brandeis.[112] In recent years the historical situation has reversed. Most recent justices have been either Catholic or Jewish.The first four female justices: O\'Connor, Sotomayor, Ginsburg, and Kagan.Racial, ethnic, and gender diversity in the Court began to increase in the late 20th century. Thurgood Marshall became the first African American justice in 1967.[112] Sandra Day O\'Connor became the first female justice in 1981.[112] Marshall was succeeded by African-American Clarence Thomas in 1991.[113] O\'Connor was joined by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1993.[114] After O\'Connor\'s retirement Ginsburg was joined in 2009 by Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic and Latina justice,[112] and in 2010 by Elena Kagan, for a total of four female justices in the Court\'s history.[114]
There have been six foreign-born justices in the Court\'s history: James Wilson (1789–1798), born in Caskardy, Scotland; James Iredell (1790–1799), born in Lewes, England; William Paterson (1793–1806), born in County Antrim, Ireland; David Brewer (1889–1910), born in Smyrna, Turkey; George Sutherland (1922–1939), born in Buckinghamshire, England; and Felix Frankfurter (1939–1962), born in Vienna, Austria.[112]
Retired justicesThere are currently four living retired justices of the Supreme Court of the United States: John Paul Stevens, Sandra Day O\'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, and David Souter. As retired justices, they no longer participate in the work of the Supreme Court, but may be designated for temporary assignments to sit on lower federal courts, usually the United States Courts of Appeals. Such assignments are formally made by the Chief Justice, on request of the Chief Judge of the lower court and with the consent of the retired justice. In recent years, Justice O\'Connor has sat with several Courts of Appeals around the country, and Justice Souter has frequently sat on the First Circuit, the court of which he was briefly a member before joining the Supreme Court.
The status of a retired justice is analogous to that of a circuit or district court judge who has taken senior status, and eligibility of a supreme court justice to assume retired status (rather than simply resign from the bench) is governed by the same age and service criteria.
In recent times, justices tend to strategically plan their decisions to leave the bench with personal, institutional, ideological, partisan and sometimes even political factors playing a role.[115][116] The fear of mental decline and death often motivates justices to step down. The desire to maximize the Court\'s strength and legitimacy through one retirement at a time, when the Court is in recess, and during non-presidential election years suggests a concern for institutional health. Finally, especially in recent decades, many justices have timed their departure to coincide with a philosophically compatible president holding office, to ensure that a like-minded successor would be appointed.[117][118]
Justice /Birthdate and place Appointed by Retired under Age at TenureStart Retirement Present Start date End date LengthJohn Paul Stevens crop.jpg John Paul StevensApril 20, 1920Chicago, Illinois Ford Obama 55 90 99 December 19, 1975 June 29, 2010 34 years, 192 daysSandra Day O\'Connor.jpg Sandra Day O\'ConnorMarch 26, 1930El Paso, Texas Reagan G. W. Bush 51 75 89 September 25, 1981 January 31, 2006 24 years, 128 daysAnthony Kennedy official SCOTUS portrait crop.jpg Anthony KennedyJuly 23, 1936Sacramento, California Reagan Trump 51 82 82 February 18, 1988 July 31, 2018 30 years, 163 daysDavidSouter.jpg David SouterSeptember 17, 1939Melrose, Massachusetts G. H. W. Bush Obama 51 69 79 October 9, 1990 June 29, 2009 18 years, 263 days Source: [100]Seniority and seating
This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Find sources: \"Supreme Court of the United States\" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (January 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)The interior of the United States Supreme CourtThe interior of the United States Supreme CourtFor the most part, the day-to-day activities of the justices are governed by rules of protocol based upon the seniority of justices. The Chief Justice always ranks first in the order of precedence—regardless of the length of his or her service. The associate justices are then ranked by the length of their service. The chief justice sits in the center on the bench, or at the head of the table during conferences. The other justices are seated in order of seniority. The senior-most associate justice sits immediately to the chief justice\'s right; the second most senior sits immediately to his left. The seats alternate right to left in order of seniority, with the most junior justice occupying the last seat.
During Court sessions, justices sit according to seniority, with the chief justice in the center and associate justices on alternating sides, with the most senior associate justice on the chief justice\'s immediate right, and the most junior associate justice seated on the left farthest away from the chief justice. Therefore, the current court sits as follows from left to right, from the perspective of those facing the Court: Gorsuch, Sotomayor, Breyer, Thomas (most senior associate justice), Roberts (chief justice), Ginsburg, Alito, Kagan, and Kavanaugh (most junior associate justice). Likewise, when the members of the Court gather for official group photographs, justices are arranged in order of seniority, with the five most senior members seated in the front row in the same order as they would sit during Court sessions, and the four most junior justices standing behind them, again in the same order as they would sit during Court sessions.
In the justices\' private conferences, current practice is for them to speak and vote in order of seniority, beginning with the chief justice first and ending with the most junior associate justice. By custom, the most junior associate justice in these conferences is charged with any menial tasks the justices may require as they convene alone, such as answering the door of their conference room, serving beverages and transmitting orders of the court to the clerk.[119] Justice Joseph Story served the longest as junior justice, from February 3, 1812, to September 1, 1823, for a total of 4,228 days. Justice Stephen Breyer follows very closely behind serving from August 3, 1994, to January 31, 2006, for a total of 4,199 days.[120] Justice Elena Kagan comes in at a distant third serving from August 6, 2010, to April 10, 2017, for a total of 2,439 days.
SalaryMain article: Federal judge salaries in the United StatesAs of 2018, associate justices are paid $255,300 and the chief justice $267,000.[121] Article III, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from reducing the pay for incumbent justices. Once a justice meets age and service requirements, the justice may retire. Judicial pensions are based on the same formula used for federal employees, but a justice\'s pension, as with other federal courts judges, can never be less than their salary at the time of retirement.
Judicial leaningsFurther information: Ideological leanings of United States Supreme Court justices and Segal–Cover scoreAlthough justices are nominated by the president in power, justices do not represent or receive official endorsements from political parties, as is accepted practice in the legislative and executive branches. Jurists are, however, informally categorized in legal and political circles as being judicial conservatives, moderates, or liberals. Such leanings, however, generally refer to legal outlook rather than a political or legislative one. The nominations of justices are endorsed by individual politicians in the legislative branch who vote their approval or disapproval of the nominated justice.
Following the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh in 2018, the Court currently consists of five justices appointed by Republican presidents and four appointed by Democratic presidents. It is popularly accepted that Chief Justice Roberts and associate justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, appointed by Republican presidents, comprise the Court\'s conservative wing. Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan, appointed by Democratic presidents, comprise the Court\'s liberal wing. Gorsuch had a track record as a reliably conservative judge in the 10th circuit.[122] Kavanaugh was considered one of the more conservative judges in the DC Circuit prior to his appointment to the Supreme Court.[123][124] Chief Justice Roberts is currently considered the Court\'s median justice (in the middle of the ideological spectrum, with four justices more liberal and four more conservative than him), making him the ideological center of the Court.[125][126]
Tom Goldstein argued in an article in SCOTUSblog in 2010, that the popular view of the Supreme Court as sharply divided along ideological lines and each side pushing an agenda at every turn is \"in significant part a caricature designed to fit certain preconceptions\".[127] He pointed out that in the 2009 term, almost half the cases were decided unanimously, and only about 20% were decided by a 5-to-4 vote. Barely one in ten cases involved the narrow liberal/conservative divide (fewer if the cases where Sotomayor recused herself are not included). He also pointed to several cases that defied the popular conception of the ideological lines of the Court.[128] Goldstein further argued that the large number of pro-criminal-defendant summary dismissals (usually cases where the justices decide that the lower courts significantly misapplied precedent and reverse the case without briefing or argument) were an illustration that the conservative justices had not been aggressively ideological. Likewise, Goldstein stated that the critique that the liberal justices are more likely to invalidate acts of Congress, show inadequate deference to the political process, and be disrespectful of precedent, also lacked merit: Thomas has most often called for overruling prior precedent (even if long standing) that he views as having been wrongly decided, and during the 2009 term Scalia and Thomas voted most often to invalidate legislation.
According to statistics compiled by SCOTUSblog, in the twelve terms from 2000 to 2011, an average of 19 of the opinions on major issues (22%) were decided by a 5–4 vote, with an average of 70% of those split opinions decided by a Court divided along the traditionally perceived ideological lines (about 15% of all opinions issued). Over that period, the conservative bloc has been in the majority about 62% of the time that the Court has divided along ideological lines, which represents about 44% of all the 5–4 decisions.[129]
In the October 2010 term, the Court decided 86 cases, including 75 signed opinions and 5 summary reversals (where the Court reverses a lower court without arguments and without issuing an opinion on the case).[130][131] Four were decided with unsigned opinions, two cases affirmed by an equally divided Court, and two cases were dismissed as improvidently granted. Justice Kagan recused herself from 26 of the cases due to her prior role as United States Solicitor General. Of the 80 cases, 38 (about 48%, the highest percentage since the October 2005 term) were decided unanimously (9–0 or 8–0), and 16 decisions were made by a 5–4 vote (about 20%, compared to 18% in the October 2009 term, and 29% in the October 2008 term).[132] However, in fourteen of the sixteen 5–4 decisions, the Court divided along the traditional ideological lines (with Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan on the liberal side, and Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito on the conservative, and Kennedy providing the \"swing vote\"). This represents 87% of those 16 cases, the highest rate in the past 10 years. The conservative bloc, joined by Kennedy, formed the majority in 63% of the 5–4 decisions, the highest cohesion rate of that bloc in the Roberts Court.[130][133][134][135][136]
In the October 2011 term, the Court decided 75 cases. Of these, 33 (44%) were decided unanimously, and 15 (20%, the same percentage as in the previous term) were decided by a vote of 5–4. Of the latter 15, the Court divided along the perceived ideological lines 10 times with Justice Kennedy joining the conservative justices (Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito) five times and with the liberal justices (Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan) five times.[129][137][138]
In the October 2012 term, the Court decided 78 cases. Five of them were decided in unsigned opinions. 38 out of the 78 decisions (representing 49% of the decisions) were unanimous in judgement, with 24 decisions being completely unanimous (a single opinion with every justice that participated joining it). This was the largest percentage of unanimous decisions that the Court had in ten years, since the October 2002 term (when 51% of the decisions handed down were unanimous). The Court split 5–4 in 23 cases (29% of the total); of these, 16 broke down along the traditionally perceived ideological lines, with Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito on one side, Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan on the other, and Justice Kennedy holding the balance. Of these 16 cases, Justice Kennedy sided with the conservatives on 10 cases, and with the liberals on 6. Three cases were decided by an interesting alignment of justices, with Chief Justice Roberts joined by Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Breyer and Alito in the majority, with Justices Scalia, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan in the minority. The greatest agreement between justices was between Ginsburg and Kagan, who agreed on 72 of the 75 (96%) cases, in which both voted; the lowest agreement between justices was between Ginsburg and Alito, who agreed only on 45 out of 77 (54%) cases, in which they both participated. Justice Kennedy was in the majority of 5–4 decisions on 20 out of 24 (83%) cases, and in 71 of 78 (91%) cases during the term, in line with his position as the \"swing vote\" of the Court.[139][140]
The October 2017 term had a low rate of unanimous rulings, with only 39% of the cases decided by unanimous rulings, the lowest percentage since the October 2008 term when 30% of rulings were unanimous.[141] Chief Justice Roberts was in the majority most often (68 out of 73 cases, or 93.2%), with retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy in second (67 out of 73 cases, or 91.8%); this was typical of the Roberts Court, in which Roberts and Kennedy have been in the majority most frequently in all terms except for the 2013 and 2014 terms (though Kennedy was in the top on both those terms).[142] Justice Sotomayor was the justice least likely to be in the majority (in 50 out of 73 cases, or 68.5%). The highest agreement between justices was between Ginsburg and Sotomayor, who agreed on 95.8% of the cases, followed by Thomas and Alito agreeing on 93% of cases. There were 19 cases that were decided by a 5–4 vote (26% of the total cases); 74% of those cases (14 out of 19) broke along ideological lines, and for the first time in the Roberts Court, all of those resulted in a conservative majority, with Roberts, Kennedy, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch on the majority.[142]
FacilitiesMain article: United States Supreme Court Building
The present U.S. Supreme Court building as viewed from the front
From the 1860s until the 1930s, the court sat in the Old Senate Chamber of the U.S. Capitol.The Supreme Court first met on February 1, 1790, at the Merchants\' Exchange Building in New York City. When Philadelphia became the capital, the Court met briefly in Independence Hall before settling in Old City Hall from 1791 until 1800. After the government moved to Washington, D.C., the Court occupied various spaces in the United States Capitol building until 1935, when it moved into its own purpose-built home. The four-story building was designed by Cass Gilbert in a classical style sympathetic to the surrounding buildings of the Capitol and Library of Congress, and is clad in marble. The building includes the courtroom, justices\' chambers, an extensive law library, various meeting spaces, and auxiliary services including a gymnasium. The Supreme Court building is within the ambit of the Architect of the Capitol, but maintains its own police force separate from the Capitol Police.[143]
Located across First Street from the United States Capitol at One First Street NE and Maryland Avenue,[144][145] the building is open to the public from 9 am to 4:30 pm weekdays but closed on weekends and holidays.[144] Visitors may not tour the actual courtroom unaccompanied. There is a cafeteria, a gift shop, exhibits, and a half-hour informational film.[143] When the Court is not in session, lectures about the courtroom are held hourly from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm and reservations are not necessary.[143] When the Court is in session the public may attend oral arguments, which are held twice each morning (and sometimes afternoons) on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays in two-week intervals from October through late April, with breaks during December and February. Visitors are seated on a first-come first-served basis. One estimate is there are about 250 seats available.[146] The number of open seats varies from case to case; for important cases, some visitors arrive the day before and wait through the night. From mid-May until the end of June, the court releases orders and opinions beginning at 10 am, and these 15 to 30-minute sessions are open to the public on a similar basis.[143] Supreme Court Police are available to answer on the wall of the Supreme Court Building from Marbury v. Madison, in which Chief Justice John Marshall outlined the concept of judicial reviewCongress is authorized by Article III of the federal Constitution to regulate the Supreme Court\'s appellate jurisdiction. The Supreme Court has original and exclusive jurisdiction over cases between two or more states[147] but may decline to hear such cases.[148] It also possesses original but not exclusive jurisdiction to hear \"all actions or proceedings to which ambassadors, other public ministers, consuls, or vice consuls of foreign states are parties; all controversies between the United States and a State; and all actions or proceedings by a State against the citizens of another State or against aliens\".[149]
In 1906, the Court asserted its original jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for contempt of court in United States v. Shipp.[150] The resulting proceeding remains the only contempt proceeding and only criminal trial in the Court\'s history.[151][152] The contempt proceeding arose from the lynching of Ed Johnson in Chattanooga, Tennessee the evening after Justice John Marshall Harlan granted Johnson a stay of execution to allow his lawyers to file an appeal. Johnson was removed from his jail cell by a lynch mob—aided by the local sheriff who left the prison virtually unguarded—and hung from a bridge, after which a deputy sheriff pinned a note on Johnson\'s body reading: \"To Justice Harlan. Come get your nigger now.\"[151] The local sheriff, John Shipp, cited the Supreme Court\'s intervention as the rationale for the lynching. The Court appointed its deputy clerk as special master to preside over the trial in Chattanooga with closing arguments made in Washington before the Supreme Court justices, who found nine individuals guilty of contempt, sentencing three to 90 days in jail and the rest to 60 days in jail.[151][152][153]
In all other cases, however, the Court has only appellate jurisdiction, including the ability to issue writs of mandamus and writs of prohibition to lower courts. It considers cases based on its original jurisdiction very rarely; almost all cases are brought to the Supreme Court on appeal. In practice, the only original jurisdiction cases heard by the Court are disputes between two or more states.[citation needed]
The Court\'s appellate jurisdiction consists of appeals from federal courts of appeal (through certiorari, certiorari before judgment, and certified questions),[154] the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces (through certiorari),[155] the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico (through certiorari),[156] the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands (through certiorari),[157] the District of Columbia Court of Appeals (through certiorari),[158] and \"final judgments or decrees rendered by the highest court of a State in which a decision could be had\" (through certiorari).[158] In the last case, an appeal may be made to the Supreme Court from a lower state court if the state\'s highest court declined to hear an appeal or lacks jurisdiction to hear an appeal. For example, a decision rendered by one of the Florida District Courts of Appeal can be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court if (a) the Supreme Court of Florida declined to grant certiorari, e.g. Florida Star v. B. J. F., or (b) the district court of appeal issued a per curiam decision simply affirming the lower court\'s decision without discussing the merits of the case, since the Supreme Court of Florida lacks jurisdiction to hear appeals of such decisions.[159] The power of the Supreme Court to consider appeals from state courts, rather than just federal courts, was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789 and upheld early in the Court\'s history, by its rulings in Martin v. Hunter\'s Lessee (1816) and Cohens v. Virginia (1821). The Supreme Court is the only federal court that has jurisdiction over direct appeals from state court decisions, although there are several devices that permit so-called \"collateral review\" of state cases. It has to be noted that this \"collateral review\" often only applies to individuals on death row and not through the regular judicial system.[160]
Since Article Three of the United States Constitution stipulates that federal courts may only entertain \"cases\" or \"controversies\", the Supreme Court cannot decide cases that are moot and it does not render advisory opinions, as the supreme courts of some states may do. For example, in DeFunis v. Odegaard, 416 U.S. 312 (1974), the Court dismissed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a law school affirmative action policy because the plaintiff student had graduated since he began the lawsuit, and a decision from the Court on his claim would not be able to redress any injury he had suffered. However, the Court recognizes some circumstances where it is appropriate to hear a case that is seemingly moot. If an issue is \"capable of repetition yet evading review\", the Court will address it even though the party before the Court would not himself be made whole by a favorable result. In Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and other abortion cases, the Court addresses the merits of claims pressed by pregnant women seeking abortions even if they are no longer pregnant because it takes longer than the typical human gestation period to appeal a case through the lower courts to the Supreme Court. Another mootness exception is voluntary cessation of unlawful conduct, in which the Court considers the probability of recurrence and plaintiff\'s need for relief.[161]
Justices as circuit justicesThe United States is divided into thirteen circuit courts of appeals, each of which is assigned a \"circuit justice\" from the Supreme Court. Although this concept has been in continuous existence throughout the history of the republic, its meaning has changed through time.
Under the Judiciary Act of 1789, each justice was required to \"ride circuit\", or to travel within the assigned circuit and consider cases alongside local judges. This practice encountered opposition from many justices, who cited the difficulty of travel. Moreover, there was a potential for a conflict of interest on the Court if a justice had previously decided the same case while riding circuit. Circuit riding ended in 1901, when the Circuit Court of Appeals Act was passed, and circuit riding was officially abolished by Congress in 1911.[162]
Today,[when?] the circuit justice for each circuit is responsible for dealing with certain types of applications that, under the Court\'s rules, may be addressed by a single justice. These include applications for emergency stays (including stays of execution in death-penalty cases) and injunctions pursuant to the All Writs Act arising from cases within that circuit, as well as routine requests such as requests for extensions of time. In the past,[when?] circuit justices also sometimes ruled on motions for bail in criminal cases, writs of habeas corpus, and applications for writs of error granting permission to appeal. Ordinarily, a justice will resolve such an application by simply endorsing it \"granted\" or \"denied\" or entering a standard form of order. However, the justice may elect to write an opinion—referred to as an in-chambers opinion—in such matters if he or she wishes.[citation needed]
A circuit justice may sit as a judge on the Court of Appeals of that circuit, but over the past hundred years, this has rarely occurred. A circuit justice sitting with the Court of Appeals has seniority over the chief judge of the circuit.
The chief justice has traditionally been assigned to the District of Columbia Circuit, the Fourth Circuit (which includes Maryland and Virginia, the states surrounding the District of Columbia), and since it was established, the Federal Circuit. Each associate justice is assigned to one or two judicial circuits.
As of October 19, 2018, the allotment of the justices among the circuits is as follows:[163]
Circuit JusticeDistrict of Columbia Circuit Chief Justice RobertsFirst Circuit Justice BreyerSecond Circuit Justice GinsburgThird Circuit Justice AlitoFourth Circuit Chief Justice RobertsFifth Circuit Justice AlitoSixth Circuit Justice SotomayorSeventh Circuit Justice KavanaughEighth Circuit Justice GorsuchNinth Circuit Justice KaganTenth Circuit Justice SotomayorEleventh Circuit Justice ThomasFederal Circuit Chief Justice RobertsThree of the current justices are assigned to circuits on which they previously sat as circuit judges: Chief Justice Roberts (D.C. Circuit), Justice Breyer (First Circuit), and Justice Alito (Third Circuit).
ProcessMain article: Procedures of the Supreme Court of the United StatesA term of the Supreme Court commences on the first Monday of each October, and continues until June or early July of the following year. Each term consists of alternating periods of around two weeks known as \"sittings\" and \"recesses\". Justices hear cases and deliver rulings during sittings; they discuss cases and write opinions during recesses.
Case selectionNearly all cases come before the court by way of petitions for writs of certiorari, commonly referred to as \"cert\". The Court may review any case in the federal courts of appeals \"by writ of certiorari granted upon the petition of any party to any civil or criminal case\".[164] Court may only review \"final judgments rendered by the highest court of a state in which a decision could be had\" if those judgments involve a question of federal statutory or constitutional law.[165] The party that appealed to the Court is the petitioner and the non-mover is the respondent. All case names before the Court are styled petitioner v. respondent, regardless of which party initiated the lawsuit in the trial court. For example, criminal prosecutions are brought in the name of the state and against an individual, as in State of Arizona v. Ernesto Miranda. If the defendant is convicted, and his conviction then is affirmed on appeal in the state supreme court, when he petitions for cert the name of the case becomes Miranda v. Arizona.
There are situations where the Court has original jurisdiction, such as when two states have a dispute against each other, or when there is a dispute between the United States and a state. In such instances, a case is filed with the Supreme Court directly. Examples of such cases include United States v. Texas, a case to determine whether a parcel of land belonged to the United States or to Texas, and Virginia v. Tennessee, a case turning on whether an incorrectly drawn boundary between two states can be changed by a state court, and whether the setting of the correct boundary requires Congressional approval. Although it has not happened since 1794 in the case of Georgia v. Brailsford,[166] parties in an action at law in which the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction may request that a jury determine issues of fact.[167] Georgia v. Brailsford remains the only case in which the court has empaneled a jury, in this case a special jury.[168] Two other original jurisdiction cases involve colonial era borders and rights under navigable waters in New Jersey v. Delaware, and water rights between riparian states upstream of navigable waters in Kansas v. Colorado.
A cert petition is voted on at a session of the court called a conference. A conference is a private meeting of the nine Justices by themselves; the public and the Justices\' clerks are excluded. The rule of four permits four of the nine justices to grant a writ of certiorari. If it is granted, the case proceeds to the briefing stage; otherwise, the case ends. Except in death penalty cases and other cases in which the Court orders briefing from the respondent, the respondent may, but is not required to, file a response to the cert petition.
The court grants a petition for cert only for \"compelling reasons\", spelled out in the court\'s Rule 10. Such reasons include:
Resolving a conflict in the interpretation of a federal law or a provision of the federal ConstitutionCorrecting an egregious departure from the accepted and usual course of judicial proceedingsResolving an important question of federal law, or to expressly review a decision of a lower court that conflicts directly with a previous decision of the Court.When a conflict of interpretations arises from differing interpretations of the same law or constitutional provision issued by different federal circuit courts of appeals, lawyers call this situation a \"circuit split\". If the court votes to deny a cert petition, as it does in the vast majority of such petitions that come before it, it does so typically without comment. A denial of a cert petition is not a judgment on the merits of a case, and the decision of the lower court stands as the case\'s final ruling.
To manage the high volume of cert petitions received by the Court each year (of the more than 7,000 petitions the Court receives each year, it will usually request briefing and hear oral argument in 100 or fewer), the Court employs an internal case management tool known as the \"cert pool\". Currently, all justices except for Justices Alito and Gorsuch participate in the cert pool.[169][170][171] [172]
Oral argumentWhen the Court grants a cert petition, the case is set for oral argument. Both parties will file briefs on the merits of the case, as distinct from the reasons they may have argued for granting or denying the cert petition. With the consent of the parties or approval of the Court, amici curiae, or \"friends of the court\", may also file briefs. The Court holds two-week oral argument sessions each month from October through April. Each side has thirty minutes to present its argument (the Court may choose to give more time, though this is rare),[173] and during that time, the Justices may interrupt the advocate and ask questions. The petitioner gives the first presentation, and may reserve some time to rebut the respondent\'s arguments after the respondent has concluded. Amici curiae may also present oral argument on behalf of one party if that party agrees. The Court advises counsel to assume that the Justices are familiar with and have read the briefs filed in a case.
Supreme Court barIn order to plead before the court, an attorney must first be admitted to the court\'s bar. Approximately 4,000 lawyers join the bar each year. The bar contains an estimated 230,000 members. In reality, pleading is limited to several hundred attorneys. The rest join for a one-time fee of $200, earning the court about $750,000 annually. Attorneys can be admitted as either individuals or as groups. The group admission is held before the current justices of the Supreme Court, wherein the Chief Justice approves a motion to admit the new attorneys.[174] Lawyers commonly apply for the cosmetic value of a certificate to display in their office or on their resume. They also receive access to better seating if they wish to attend an oral argument.[175] Members of the Supreme Court Bar are also granted access to the collections of the Supreme Court Library.[176]
DecisionAt the conclusion of oral argument, the case is submitted for decision. Cases are decided by majority vote of the Justices. It is the Court\'s practice to issue decisions in all cases argued in a particular Term by the end of that Term. Within that Term, however, the Court is under no obligation to release a decision within any set time after oral argument. At the conclusion of oral argument, the Justices retire to another conference at which the preliminary votes are tallied, and the most senior Justice in the majority assigns the initial draft of the Court\'s opinion to a Justice on his or her side. Drafts of the Court\'s opinion, as well as any concurring or dissenting opinions,[177] circulate among the Justices until the Court is prepared to announce the judgment in a particular case. Since recording devices are banned inside the courtroom of the United States Supreme Court Building, the delivery of the decision to the media is done via paper copies and is known as the Running of the Interns.[178][179]
It is possible that, through recusals or vacancies, the Court divides evenly on a case. If that occurs, then the decision of the court below is affirmed, but does not establish binding precedent. In effect, it results in a return to the status quo ante. For a case to be heard, there must be a quorum of at least six justices.[180] If a quorum is not available to hear a case and a majority of qualified justices believes that the case cannot be heard and determined in the next term, then the judgment of the court below is affirmed as if the Court had been evenly divided. For cases brought to the Supreme Court by direct appeal from a United States District Court, the Chief Justice may order the case remanded to the appropriate U.S. Court of Appeals for a final decision there.[181] This has only occurred once in U.S. history, in the case of United States v. Alcoa (1945).[182]
Published opinionsThe Court\'s opinions are published in three stages. First, a slip opinion is made available on the Court\'s web site and through other outlets. Next, several opinions and lists of the court\'s orders are bound together in paperback form, called a preliminary print of United States Reports, the official series of books in which the final version of the Court\'s opinions appears. About a year after the preliminary prints are issued, a final bound volume of U.S. Reports is issued. The individual volumes of U.S. Reports are numbered so that users may cite this set of reports (or a competing version published by another commercial legal publisher but containing parallel citations) to allow those who read their pleadings and other briefs to find the cases quickly and easily.
As of January 2019, there are:
Final bound volumes of U.S. Reports: 569 volumes, covering cases through June 13, 2013 (part of the October 2012 term).[183][184]Slip opinions: 21 volumes (565–585 for 2011–2017 terms, three two-part volumes each), plus part 1 of volume 586 (2018 term).[185]As of March 2012, the U.S. Reports have published a total of 30,161 Supreme Court opinions, covering the decisions handed down from February 1790 to March 2012.[citation needed] This figure does not reflect the number of cases the Court has taken up, as several cases can be addressed by a single opinion (see, for example, Parents v. Seattle, where Meredith v. Jefferson County Board of Education was also decided in the same opinion; by a similar logic, Miranda v. Arizona actually decided not only Miranda but also three other cases: Vignera v. New York, Westover v. United States, and California v. Stewart). A more unusual example is The Telephone Cases, which comprise a single set of interlinked opinions that take up the entire 126th volume of the U.S. Reports.
Opinions are also collected and published in two unofficial, parallel reporters: Supreme Court Reporter, published by West (now a part of Thomson Reuters), and United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers\' Edition (simply known as Lawyers\' Edition), published by LexisNexis. In court documents, legal periodicals and other legal media, case citations generally contain cites from each of the three reporters; for example, citation to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is presented as Citizens United v. Federal Election Com\'n, 585 U.S. 50, 130 S. Ct. 876, 175 L. Ed. 2d 753 (2010), with \"S. Ct.\" representing the Supreme Court Reporter, and \"L. Ed.\" representing the Lawyers\' Edition.[186][187]
Citations to published opinionsFurther information: Case citation § Supreme Court of the United StaTesla Referralwyers use an abbreviated format to cite cases, in the form \"vol U.S. page, pin (year)\", where vol is the volume number, page is the page number on which the opinion begins, and year is the year in which the case was decided. Optionally, pin is used to \"pinpoint\" to a specific page number within the opinion. For instance, the citation for Roe v. Wade is 410 U.S. 113 (1973), which means the case was decided in 1973 and appears on page 113 of volume 410 of U.S. Reports. For opinions or orders that have not yet been published in the preliminary print, the volume and page numbers may be replaced with \"___\".
Institutional powers and constraintsThe Federal court system and the judicial authority to interpret the Constitution received little attention in the debates over the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. The power of judicial review, in fact, is nowhere mentioned in it. Over the ensuing years, the question of whether the power of judicial review was even intended by the drafters of the Constitution was quickly frustrated by the lack of evidence bearing on the question either way.[188] Nevertheless, the power of judiciary to overturn laws and executive actions it determines are unlawful or unconstitutional is a well-established precedent. Many of the Founding Fathers accepted the notion of judicial review; in Federalist No. 78, Alexander Hamilton wrote: \"A Constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute.\"
The Supreme Court firmly established its power to declare laws unconstitutional in Marbury v. Madison (1803), consummating the American system of checks and balances. In explaining the power of judicial review, Chief Justice John Marshall stated that the authority to interpret the law was the particular province of the courts, part of the duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. His contention was not that the Court had privileged insight into constitutional requirements, but that it was the constitutional duty of the judiciary, as well as the other branches of government, to read and obey the dictates of the Constitution.[188]
Since the founding of the republic, there has been a tension between the practice of judicial review and the democratic ideals of egalitarianism, self-government, self-determination and freedom of conscience. At one pole are those who view the Federal Judiciary and especially the Supreme Court as being \"the most separated and least checked of all branches of government\".[189] Indeed, federal judges and justices on the Supreme Court are not required to stand for election by virtue of their tenure \"during good behavior\", and their pay may \"not be diminished\" while they hold their position (Section 1 of Article Three). Though subject to the process of impeachment, only one Justice has ever been impeached and no Supreme Court Justice has been removed from office. At the other pole are those who view the judiciary as the least dangerous branch, with little ability to resist the exhortations of the other branches of government.[188] The Supreme Court, it is noted, cannot directly enforce its rulings; instead, it relies on respect for the Constitution and for the law for adherence to its judgments. One notable instance of nonacquiescence came in 1832, when the state of Georgia ignored the Supreme Court\'s decision in Worcester v. Georgia. President Andrew Jackson, who sided with the Georgia courts, is supposed to have remarked, \"John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!\";[190] however, this alleged quotation has been disputed. Some state governments in the South also resisted the desegregation of public schools after the 1954 judgment Brown v. Board of Education. More recently, many feared that President Nixon would refuse to comply with the Court\'s order in United States v. Nixon (1974) to surrender the Watergate tapes.[191][citation needed] Nixon, however, ultimately complied with the Supreme Court\'s ruling.
Supreme Court decisions can be (and have been) purposefully overturned by constitutional amendment, which has happened on five occasions:
Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) – overturned by the Eleventh Amendment (1795)Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) – overturned by the Thirteenth Amendment (1865) and the Fourteenth Amendment (1868)Pollock v. Farmers\' Loan & Trust Co. (1895) – overturned by the Sixteenth Amendment (1913)Minor v. Happersett (1875) – overturned by the Nineteenth Amendment (1920)Oregon v. Mitchell (1970) – overturned by the Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971)When the Court rules on matters involving the interpretation of laws rather than of the Constitution, simple legislative action can reverse the decisions (for example, in 2009 Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter act, superseding the limitations given in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in 2007). Also, the Supreme Court is not immune from political and institutional consideration: lower federal courts and state courts sometimes resist doctrinal innovations, as do law enforcement officials.[192]
In addition, the other two branches can restrain the Court through other mechanisms. Congress can increase the number of justices, giving the President power to influence future decisions by appointments (as in Roosevelt\'s Court Packing Plan discussed above). Congress can pass legislation that restricts the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court and other federal courts over certain topics and cases: this is suggested by language in Section 2 of Article Three, where the appellate jurisdiction is granted \"with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.\" The Court sanctioned such congressional action in the Reconstruction case ex parte McCardle (1869), though it rejected Congress\' power to dictate how particular cases must be decided in United States v. Klein (1871).
On the other hand, through its power of judicial review, the Supreme Court has defined the scope and nature of the powers and separation between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government; for example, in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. (1936), Dames & Moore v. Regan (1981), and notably in Goldwater v. Carter (1979), (where it effectively gave the Presidency the power to terminate ratified treaties without the consent of Congress). The Court\'s decisions can also impose limitations on the scope of Executive authority, as in Humphrey\'s Executor v. United States (1935), the Steel Seizure Case (1952), and United States v. Nixon (1974).
Law clerksFurther information: List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United StatesEach Supreme Court justice hires several law Clerks to review petitions for writ of certiorari, research them, prepare bench memorandums, and draft opinions. Associate justices are allowed four clerks. The chief justice is allowed five clerks, but Chief Justice Rehnquist hired only three per year, and Chief Justice Roberts usually hires only four.[193] Generally, law clerks serve a term of one to two years.
The first law clerk was hired by Associate Justice Horace Gray in 1882.[193][194] Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and Louis Brandeis were the first Supreme Court justices to use recent law school graduates as clerks, rather than hiring a \"stenographer-secretary\".[195] Most law clerks are recent law school graduates.
The first female clerk was Lucile Lomen, hired in 1944 by Justice William O. Douglas.[193] The first African-American, William T. Coleman, Jr., was hired in 1948 by Justice Felix Frankfurter.[193] A disproportionately large number of law clerks have obtained law degrees from elite law schools, especially Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, Columbia, and Stanford. From 1882 to 1940, 62% of law clerks were graduates of Harvard Law School.[193] Those chosen to be Supreme Court law clerks usually have graduated in the top of their law school class and were often an editor of the law review or a member of the moot court board. By the mid-1970s, clerking previously for a judge in a federal court of appeals had also become a prerequisite to clerking for a Supreme Court justice.[196]
Eight Supreme Court justices previously clerked for other justices: Byron White for Frederick M. Vinson, John Paul Stevens for Wiley Rutledge, William Rehnquist for Robert H. Jackson, Stephen Breyer for Arthur Goldberg, John Roberts for William Rehnquist, Elena Kagan for Thurgood Marshall, Neil Gorsuch for both Byron White and Anthony Kennedy, and Brett Kavanaugh for Kennedy. Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh served under Kennedy during the same term. Gorsuch is the first justice to serve alongside a justice for whom he or she clerked. With the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh, for the first time a majority of the Supreme Court is composed of former Supreme Court law clerks (Roberts, Breyer, Kagan, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh).
Several current Supreme Court justices have also clerked in the federal courts of appeals: John Roberts for Judge Henry Friendly of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Justice Samuel Alito for Judge Leonard I. Garth of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Elena Kagan for Judge Abner J. Mikva of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Neil Gorsuch for Judge David B. Sentelle of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and Brett Kavanaugh for Judge Walter Stapleton of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and Judge Alex Kozinski of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Politicization of the CourtClerks hired by each of the justices of the Supreme Court are often given considerable leeway in the opinions they draft. \"Supreme Court clerkship appeared to be a nonpartisan institution from the 1940s into the 1980s,\" according to a study published in 2009 by the law review of Vanderbilt University Law School.[197][198] \"As law has moved closer to mere politics, political affiliations have naturally and predictably become proxies for the different political agendas that have been pressed in and through the courts,\" former federal court of appeals judge J. Michael Luttig said.[197] David J. Garrow, professor of history at the University of Cambridge, stated that the Court had thus begun to mirror the political branches of government. \"We are getting a composition of the clerk workforce that is getting to be like the House of Representatives,\" Professor Garrow said. \"Each side is putting forward only ideological purists.\"[197]
According to the Vanderbilt Law Review study, this politicized hiring trend reinforces the impression that the Supreme Court is \"a superlegislature responding to ideological arguments rather than a legal institution responding to concerns grounded in the rule of law\".[197] A poll conducted in June 2012 by The New York Times and CBS News showed just 44% of Americans approve of the job the Supreme Court is doing. Three-quarters said justices\' decisions are sometimes influenced by their political or personal views.[199]
CriticismThe Supreme Court has been the object of criticisms on a range of issues. Among them:
Judicial activismThe Supreme Court has been criticized for not keeping within Constitutional bounds by engaging in judicial activism, rather than merely interpreting law and exercising judicial restraint. Claims of judicial activism are not confined to any particular ideology.[200] An often cited example of conservative judicial activism is the 1905 decision in Lochner v. New York, which has been criticized by many prominent thinkers, including Robert Bork, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Chief Justice John Roberts,[200][201] and which was reversed in the 1930s.[202][203][204] An often cited example of liberal judicial activism is Roe v. Wade (1973), which legalized abortion on the basis of the \"right to privacy\" inferred from the Fourteenth Amendment, a reasoning that some critics argued was circuitous.[200] Legal scholars,[205][206] justices,[207] and presidential candidates[208] have criticized the Roe decision. The progressive Brown v. Board of Education decision has been criticized by conservatives such as Patrick Buchanan[209] and former presidential contender Barry Goldwater.[210] More recently, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission was criticized for expanding upon the precedent in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti (1978) that the First Amendment applies to corporations.[211] President Abraham Lincoln warned, referring to the Dred Scott decision, that if government policy became \"irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court...the people will have ceased to be their own rulers.\"[212] Former justice Thurgood Marshall justified judicial activism with these words: \"You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.\"[213] During different historical periods, the Court has leaned in different directions.[214][215] Critics from both sides complain that activist-judges abandon the Constitution and substitute their own views instead.[216][217][218] Critics include writers such as Andrew Napolitano,[219] Phyllis Schlafly,[220] Mark R. Levin,[221] Mark I. Sutherland,[222] and James MacGregor Burns.[223][224] Past presidents from both parties have attacked judicial activism, including Franklin D. Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.[225][226] Failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork wrote: \"What judges have wrought is a coup d\'état, – slow-moving and genteel, but a coup d\'état nonetheless.\"[227] Senator Al Franken quipped that when politicians talk about judicial activism, \"their definition of an activist judge is one who votes differently than they would like.\"[228] Brian Leiter wrote that \"Given the complexity of the law and the complexity involved in saying what really happened in a given dispute, all judges, and especially those on the Supreme Court, often have to exercise a quasi-legislative power,\" and \"Supreme Court nominations are controversial because the court is a super-legislature, and because its moral and political judgments are controversial.\"[229]
Failing to protect individual rightsCourt decisions have been criticized for failing to protect individual rights: the Dred Scott (1857) decision upheld slavery;[230] Plessy v Ferguson (1896) upheld segregation under the doctrine of separate but equal;[231] Kelo v. City of New London (2005) was criticized by prominent politicians, including New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, as undermining property rights.[232][233] Some critics suggest the 2009 bench with a conservative majority has \"become increasingly hostile to voters\" by siding with Indiana\'s voter identification laws which tend to \"disenfranchise large numbers of people without driver\'s licenses, especially poor and minority voters\", according to one report.[234] Senator Al Franken criticized the Court for \"eroding individual rights\".[228] However, others argue that the Court is too protective of some individual rights, particularly those of people accused of crimes or in detention. For example, Chief Justice Warren Burger was an outspoken critic of the exclusionary rule, and Justice Scalia criticized the Court\'s decision in Boumediene v. Bush for being too protective of the rights of Guantanamo detainees, on the grounds that habeas corpus was \"limited\" to sovereign territory.[235]
Too much powerThis criticism is related to complaints about judicial activism. George Will wrote that the Court has an \"increasingly central role in American governance\".[236] It was criticized for intervening in bankruptcy proceedings regarding ailing carmaker Chrysler Corporation in 2009.[237] A reporter wrote that \"Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg\'s intervention in the Chrysler bankruptcy\" left open the \"possibility of further judicial review\" but argued overall that the intervention was a proper use of Supreme Court power to check the executive branch.[237] Warren E. Burger, before becoming Chief Justice, argued that since the Supreme Court has such \"unreviewable power\" it is likely to \"self-indulge itself\" and unlikely to \"engage in dispassionate analysis\".[238] Larry Sabato wrote \"excessive authority has accrued to the federal courts, especially the Supreme Court.\"[239]
Courts are poor check on executive powerBritish constitutional scholar Adam Tomkins sees flaws in the American system of having courts (and specifically the Supreme Court) act as checks on the Executive and Legislative branches; he argues that because the courts must wait, sometimes for years, for cases to navigate their way through the system, their ability to restrain other branches is severely weakened.[240][241] In contrast, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany for example, can directly declare a law unconstitutional upon request.
Federal versus state powerThere has been debate throughout American history about the boundary between federal and state power. While Framers such as James Madison[242] and Alexander Hamilton[243] argued in The Federalist Papers that their then-proposed Constitution would not infringe on the power of state governments,[244][245][246][247] others argue that expansive federal power is good and consistent with the Framers\' wishes.[248] The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution explicitly grants \"powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.\" The Supreme Court has been criticized for giving the federal government too much power to interfere with state authority. One criticism is that it has allowed the federal government to misuse the Commerce Clause by upholding regulations and legislation which have little to do with interstate commerce, but that were enacted under the guise of regulating interstate commerce; and by voiding state legislation for allegedly interfering with interstate commerce. For example, the Commerce Clause was used by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the Endangered Species Act, thus protecting six endemic species of insect near Austin, Texas, despite the fact that the insects had no commercial value and did not travel across state lines; the Supreme Court let that ruling stand without comment in 2005.[249] Chief Justice John Marshall asserted Congress\'s power over interstate commerce was \"complete in itself, may be exercised to its utmost extent, and acknowledges no limitations, other than are prescribed in the Constitution\".[250] Justice Alito said congressional authority under the Commerce Clause is \"quite broad\".[251] Modern day theorist Robert B. Reich suggests debate over the Commerce Clause continues today.[250] Advocates of states\' rights such as constitutional scholar Kevin Gutzman have also criticized the Court, saying it has misused the Fourteenth Amendment to undermine state authority. Justice Brandeis, in arguing for allowing the states to operate without federal interference, suggested that states should be laboratories of democracy.[252] One critic wrote \"the great majority of Supreme Court rulings of unconstitutionality involve state, not federal, law.\"[253] However, others see the Fourteenth Amendment as a positive force that extends \"protection of those rights and guarantees to the state level\".[254] More recently, the issue of federal power is central in the prosecution of Gamble v. United States, which is examining the doctrine of \"separate sovereigns\", whereby a criminal defendant can be prosecuted by a state court and then by a federal court.[255][256]
Secretive proceedingsThe Court has been criticized for keeping its deliberations hidden from public view.[257] According to a review of Jeffrey Toobin\'s expose The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court; \"Its inner workings are difficult for reporters to cover, like a closed \'cartel\', only revealing itself through \'public events and printed releases, with nothing about its inner workings.\'[258] The reviewer writes: \"few (reporters) dig deeply into court affairs. It all works very neatly; the only ones hurt are the American people, who know little about nine individuals with enormous power over their lives.\"[258] Larry Sabato complains about the Court\'s \"insularity\".[239] A Fairleigh Dickinson University poll conducted in 2010 found that 61% of American voters agreed that televising Court hearings would \"be good for democracy\", and 50% of voters stated they would watch Court proceedings if they were televised.[259][260] In recent years, many justices have appeared on television, written books and made public statements to journalists.[261][262] In a 2009 interview on C-SPAN, journalists Joan Biskupic (of USA Today) and Lyle Denniston (of SCOTUSblog) argued that the Court is a \"very open\" institution with only the justices\' private conferences inaccessible to others.[261] In October 2010, the Court began the practice of posting on its website recordings and transcripts of oral arguments on the Friday after they occur.
Judicial interference in political disputesSome Court decisions have been criticized for injecting the Court into the political arena, and deciding questions that are the purview of the other two branches of government. The Bush v. Gore decision, in which the Supreme Court intervened in the 2000 presidential election and effectively chose George W. Bush over Al Gore, has been criticized extensively, particularly by liberals.[258][263][264][265][266][267] Another example are Court decisions on apportionment and re-districting: in Baker v. Carr, the court decided it could rule on apportionment questions; Justice Frankfurter in a \"scathing dissent\" argued against the court wading into so-called political questions.[268]
Not choosing enough cases to reviewSenator Arlen Specter said the Court should \"decide more cases\".[228] On the other hand, although Justice Scalia acknowledged in a 2009 interview that the number of cases that the Court hears now is smaller today than when he first joined the Supreme Court, he also stated that he has not changed his standards for deciding whether to review a case, nor does he believe his colleagues have changed their standards. He attributed the high volume of cases in the late 1980s, at least in part, to an earlier flurry of new federal legislation that was making its way through the courts.[261]
Lifetime tenureCritic Larry Sabato wrote: \"The insularity of lifetime tenure, combined with the appointments of relatively young attorneys who give long service on the bench, produces senior judges representing the views of past generations better than views of the current day.\"[239] Sanford Levinson has been critical of justices who stayed in office despite medical deterioration based on longevity.[269] James MacGregor Burns stated lifelong tenure has \"produced a critical time lag, with the Supreme Court institutionally almost always behind the times\".[223] Proposals to solve these problems include term limits for justices, as proposed by Levinson[270] and Sabato[239][271] as well as a mandatory retirement age proposed by Richard Epstein,[272] among others.[273] However, others suggest lifetime tenure brings substantial benefits, such as impartiality and freedom from political pressure. Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 78 wrote \"nothing can contribute so much to its firmness and independence as permanency in office.\"[274]
Accepting giftsThe 21st century has seen increased scrutiny of justices accepting expensive gifts and travel. All of the members of the Roberts Court have accepted travel or gifts. In 2012, Justice Sonia Sotomayor received $1.9 million in advances from her publisher Knopf Doubleday.[275] Justice Scalia and others took dozens of expensive trips to exotic locations paid for by private donors.[276] Private events sponsored by partisan groups that are attended by both the justices and those who have an interest in their decisions have raised concerns about access and inappropriate communications.[277] Stephen Spaulding, the legal director at Common Cause, said: \"There are fair questions raised by some of these trips about their commitment to being impartial.\"[276]
The Farm Security Administration (FSA) was a New Deal agency created in 1937 to combat rural poverty during the Great Depression in the United States. It succeeded the Resettlement Administration (1935–1937).[1]
The FSA is famous for its small but highly influential photography program, 1935–44, that portrayed the challenges of rural poverty. The photographs in the FSA/Office of War Information Photograph Collection form an extensive pictorial record of American life between 1935 and 1944. This U.S. government photography project was headed for most of its existence by Roy Stryker, who guided the effort in a succession of government agencies: the Resettlement Administration (1935–1937), the Farm Security Administration (1937–1942), and the Office of War Information (1942–1944). The collection also includes photographs acquired from other governmental and nongovernmental sources, including the News Bureau at the Offices of Emergency Management (OEM), various branches of the military, and industrial corporations.[2]
In total, the black-and-white portion of the collection consists of about 175,000 black-and-white film negatives, encompassing both negatives that were printed for FSA-OWI use and those that were not printed at the time. Color transparencies also made by the FSA/OWI are available in a separate section of the catalog: FSA/OWI Color Photographs.[2]
The FSA stressed \"rural rehabilitation\" efforts to improve the lifestyle of very poor landowning farmers, and a program to purchase submarginal land owned by poor farmers and resettle them in group farms on land more suitable for efficient farming.
Reactionary critics, including the Farm Bureau, strongly opposed the FSA as an alleged experiment in collectivizing agriculture—that is, in bringing farmers together to work on large government-owned farms using modern techniques under the supervision of experts. After the Conservative coalition took control of Congress, it transformed the FSA into a program to help poor farmers buy land, and that program continues to operate in the 21st century as the Farmers Home Administration.
Origins
Walker Evans portrait of Allie Mae Burroughs (1936)
Arthur Rothstein photograph \"Dust Bowl Cimarron County, Oklahoma\" of a farmer and two sons during a dust storm in Cimarron County, Oklahoma (1936)
Dorothea Lange photograph of an Arkansas squatter of three years near Bakersfield, California (1935)The projects that were combined in 1935 to form the Resettlement Administration (RA) started in 1933 as an assortment of programs tried out by the Federal Emergency Relief Administration. The RA was headed by Rexford Tugwell, an economic advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[3] However, Tugwell\'s goal moving 650,000 people into 100,000,000 acres (400,000 km2) of exhausted, worn-out land was unpopular among the majority in Congress.[3] This goal seemed socialistic to some and threatened to deprive powerful farm proprietors of their tenant workforce.[3] The RA was thus left with only enough resources to relocate a few thousand people from 9 million acres (36,000 km2) and build several greenbelt cities,[3] which planners admired as models for a cooperative future that never arrived.[3]
The main focus of the RA was to now build relief camps in California for migratory workers, especially refugees from the drought-stricken Dust Bowl of the Southwest.[3] This move was resisted by a large share of Californians, who did not want destitute migrants to settle in their midst.[3] The RA managed to construct 95 camps that gave migrants unaccustomed clean quarters with running water and other amenities,[3] but the 75,000 people who had the benefit of these camps were a small share of those in need and could only stay temporarily.[3] After facing enormous criticism for his poor management of the RA, Tugwell resigned in 1936.[3] On January 1, 1937,[4] with hopes of making the RA more effective, the RA was transferred to the Department of Agriculture through executive order 7530.[4]
On July 22, 1937,[5] Congress passed the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act.[5] This law authorized a modest credit program to assist tenant farmers to purchase land,[5] and it was the culmination of a long effort to secure legislation for their benefit.[5] Following the passage of the act, Congress passed the Farm Security Act into law. The Farm Security Act officially transformed the RA into the Farm Security Administration (FSA).[3] The FSA expanded through funds given by the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act.[3]
Relief workOne of the activities performed by the RA and FSA was the buying out of small farms that were not economically viable, and the setting up of 34 subsistence homestead communities, in which groups of farmers lived together under the guidance of government experts and worked a common area. They were not allowed to purchase their farms for fear that they would fall back into inefficient practices not guided by RA and FSA experts.[6]
The Dust Bowl in the Great Plains displaced thousands of tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and laborers, many of whom (known as \"Okies\" or \"Arkies\") moved on to California. The FSA operated camps for them, such as Weedpatch Camp as depicted in The Grapes of Wrath.
The RA and the FSA gave educational aid to 455,000 farm families during the period 1936-1943. In June, 1936, Roosevelt wrote: \"You are right about the farmers who suffer through their own fault... I wish you would have a talk with Tugwell about what he is doing to educate this type of farmer to become self-sustaining. During the past year, his organization has made 104,000 farm families practically self-sustaining by supervision and education along practical lines. That is a pretty good record!\"[7]
The FSA\'s primary mission was not to aid farm production or prices. Roosevelt\'s agricultural policy had, in fact, been to try to decrease agricultural production to increase prices. When production was discouraged, though, the tenant farmers and small holders suffered most by not being able to ship enough to market to pay rents. Many renters wanted money to buy farms, but the Agriculture Department realized there already were too many farmers, and did not have a program for farm purchases. Instead, they used education to help the poor stretch their money further. Congress, however, demanded that the FSA help tenant farmers purchase farms, and purchase loans of $191 million were made, which were eventually repaid. A much larger program was $778 million in loans (at effective rates of about 1% interest) to 950,000 tenant farmers. The goal was to make the farmer more efficient so the loans were used for new machinery, trucks, or animals, or to repay old debts. At all times, the borrower was closely advised by a government agent. Family needs were on the agenda, as the FSA set up a health insurance program and taught farm wives how to cook and raise children. Upward of a third of the amount was never repaid, as the tenants moved to much better opportunities in the cities.[8]
The FSA was also one of the authorities administering relief efforts in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico during the Great Depression. Between 1938 and 1945, under the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration, it oversaw the purchase of 590 farms with the intent of distributing land to working and middle-class Puerto Ricans.[9]
ModernizationThe FSA resettlement communities appear in the literature as efforts to ameliorate the wretched condition of southern sharecroppers and tenants, but those evicted to make way for the new settlers are virtually invisible in the historic record. The resettlement projects were part of larger efforts to modernize rural America. The removal of former tenants and their replacement by FSA clients in the lower Mississippi alluvial plain—the Delta—reveals core elements of New Deal modernizing policies. The key concepts that guided the FSA\'s tenant removals were: the definition of rural poverty as rooted in the problem of tenancy; the belief that economic success entailed particular cultural practices and social forms; and the commitment by those with political power to gain local support. These assumptions undergirded acceptance of racial segregation and the criteria used to select new settlers. Alternatives could only become visible through political or legal action—capacities sharecroppers seldom had. In succeeding decades, though, these modernizing assumptions created conditions for Delta African Americans on resettlement projects to challenge white supremacy.[10]
FSA and its contribution to societyThe documentary photography genre describes photographs that would work as a time capsule for evidence in the future or a certain method that a person can use for a frame of reference. Facts presented in a photograph can speak for themselves after the viewer gets time to analyze it. The motto of the FSA was simply, as Beaumont Newhall insists, \"not to inform us, but to move us.\"[citation needed] Those photographers wanted the government to move and give a hand to the people, as they were completely neglected and overlooked, thus they decided to start taking photographs in a style that we today call \"documentary photography.\" The FSA photography has been influential due to its realist point of view, and because it works as a frame of reference and an educational tool from which later generations could learn. Society has benefited and will benefit from it for more years to come, as this photography can unveil the ambiguous and question the conditions that are taking place.[11]
Photography programThe RA and FSA are well known for the influence of their photography program, 1935–1944. Photographers and writers were hired to report and document the plight of poor farmers. The Information Division (ID) of the FSA was responsible for providing educational materials and press information to the public. Under Roy Stryker, the ID of the FSA adopted a goal of \"introducing America to Americans.\" Many of the most famous Depression-era photographers were fostered by the FSA project. Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks were three of the most famous FSA alumni.[12] The FSA was also cited in Gordon Parks\' autobiographical novel, A Choice of Weapons.
The FSA\'s photography was one of the first large-scale visual documentations of the lives of African-Americans.[13] These images were widely disseminated through the Twelve Million Black Voices collection, published in October 1941, which combined FSA photographs selected by Edwin Rosskam and text by author and poet Richard Wright.
PhotographersFifteen photographers (ordered by year of hire) would produce the bulk of work on this project. Their diverse, visual documentation elevated government\'s mission from the \"relocation\" tactics of a Resettlement Administration to strategic solutions which would depend on America recognizing rural and already poor Americans, facing death by depression and dust. FSA photographers: Arthur Rothstein (1935), Theodor Jung (1935), Ben Shahn (1935), Walker Evans (1935), Dorothea Lange (1935), Carl Mydans (1935), Russell Lee (1936), Marion Post Wolcott (1936), John Vachon (1936, photo assignments began in 1938), Jack Delano (1940), John Collier (1941), Marjory Collins (1941), Louise Rosskam (1941), Gordon Parks (1942) and Esther Bubley (1942).
With America\'s entry into World War II, FSA would focus on a different kind of relocation as orders were issued for internment of Japanese Americans. FSA photographers would be transferred to the Office of War Information during the last years of the war and completely disbanded at the war\'s end. Photographers like Howard R. Hollem, Alfred T. Palmer, Arthur Siegel and OWI\'s Chief of Photographers John Rous were working in OWI before FSA\'s reorganization there. As a result of both teams coming under one unit name, these other individuals are sometimes associated with RA-FSA\'s pre-war images of American life. Though collectively credited with thousands of Library of Congress images, military ordered, positive-spin assignments like these four received starting in 1942, should be separately considered from pre-war, depression triggered imagery. FSA photographers were able to take time to study local circumstances and discuss editorial approaches with each other before capturing that first image. Each one talented in her or his own right, equal credit belongs to Roy Stryker who recognized, hired and empowered that talent.
John Collier Jr.John Collier Jr.
Jack DelanoJack Delano
Walker EvansWalker Evans
Dorothea LangeDorothea Lange
Russell LeeRussell Lee
Carl MydansCarl Mydans
Gordon ParksGordon Parks
Arthur RothsteinArthur Rothstein
John VachonJohn Vachon
Marion Post WolcottMarion Post Wolcott
These 15 photographers, some shown above, all played a significant role, not only in producing images for this project, but also in molding the resulting images in the final project through conversations held between the group members. The photographers produced images that breathed a humanistic social visual catalyst of the sort found in novels, theatrical productions, and music of the time. Their images are now regarded as a \"national treasure\" in the United States, which is why this project is regarded as a work of art.[14]Photograph of Chicago\'s rail yards by Jack Delano, circa 1943Together with John Steinbeck\'s The Grapes of Wrath (not a government project) and documentary prose (for example Walker Evans and James Agee\'s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men), the FSA photography project is most responsible for creating the image of the Depression in the United States. Many of the images appeared in popular magazines. The photographers were under instruction from Washington, DC, as to what overall impression the New Deal wanted to portray. Stryker\'s agenda focused on his faith in social engineering, the poor conditions among tenant cotton farmers, and the very poor conditions among migrant farm workers; above all, he was committed to social reform through New Deal intervention in people\'s lives. Stryker demanded photographs that \"related people to the land and vice versa\" because these photographs reinforced the RA\'s position that poverty could be controlled by \"changing land practices.\" Though Stryker did not dictate to his photographers how they should compose the shots, he did send them lists of desirable themes, for example, \"church\", \"court day\", and \"barns\". Stryker sought photographs of migratory workers that would tell a story about how they lived day-to-day. He asked Dorothea Lange to emphasize cooking, sleeping, praying, and socializing.[15] RA-FSA made 250,000 images of rural poverty. Fewer than half of those images survive and are housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. The library has placed all 164,000 developed negatives online.[16] From these, some 77,000 different finished photographic prints were originally made for the press, plus 644 color images, from 1600 negatives.
Documentary filmsThe RA also funded two documentary films by Pare Lorentz: The Plow That Broke the Plains, about the creation of the Dust Bowl, and The River, about the importance of the Mississippi River. The films were deemed \"culturally significant\" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
World War II activitiesDuring World War II, the FSA was assigned to work under the purview of the Wartime Civil Control Administration, a subagency of the War Relocation Authority. These agencies were responsible for relocating Japanese Americans from their homes on the West Coast to Internment camps. The FSA controlled the agricultural part of the evacuation. Starting in March 1942 they were responsible for transferring the farms owned and operated by Japanese Americans to alternate operators. They were given the dual mandate of ensuring fair compensation for Japanese Americans, and for maintaining correct use of the agricultural land. During this period, Lawrence Hewes Jr was the regional director and in charge of these activities.[17]
Reformers ousted; Farmers Home AdministrationAfter the war started and millions of factory jobs in the cities were unfilled, no need for FSA remained.[citation needed] In late 1942, Roosevelt moved the housing programs to the National Housing Agency, and in 1943, Congress greatly reduced FSA\'s activities. The photographic unit was subsumed by the Office of War Information for one year, then disbanded. Finally in 1946, all the social reformers had left and FSA was replaced by a new agency, the Farmers Home Administration, which had the goal of helping finance farm purchases by tenants—and especially by war veterans—with no personal oversight by experts. It became part of Lyndon Johnson\'s war on poverty in the 1960s, with a greatly expanded budget to facilitate loans to low-income rural families and cooperatives, injecting $4.2 billion into rural America.[18]
The Great DepressionThe Great Depression began in August 1929, when the United States economy first went into an economic recession. Although the country spent two months with declining GDP, the effects of a declining economy were not felt until the Wall Street Crash in October 1929, and a major worldwide economic downturn ensued.
Although its causes are still uncertain and controversial, the net effect was a sudden and general loss of confidence in the economic future and a reduction in living standards for most ordinary Americans. The market crash highlighted a decade of high unemployment, poverty, low profits for industrial firms, deflation, plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth.[19]