The History Book Club discussion

This thread is about Associate Justice Felix Frankfurther and all related topics.

Biography
Felix Frankfurter was born in Vienna, Austria. He emigrated with his parents in 1894 and grew up amidst teeming tenements on New York's lower east side. He attended City College and established an impressive record at Harvard Law School. He had a brief tour in private legal practice but soon entered into government service, beginning with the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan. Frankfurter followed the incumbent U.S. Attorney, Henry Stimson, back into private practice and then back to government, this time as Stimpson held the position of Secretary of War under President Taft.

Frankfurter left government service to accept a position on the faculty of Harvard Law School where he remained, more or less, until his appointment to the Supreme Court in 1938. Frankfurter earned a reputation as an expert in constitutional law and federal jurisdiction. But he was no academic recluse. He argued cases for the National Consumers League, maintained an active interest in Zionist causes, and helped to found The New Republic. Frankfurter was also a highly visible defender of Sacco and Vanzetti, who were anarchists accused of bank robbery and murder in Braintree, Massachusetts.

Frankfurter was a confidant of Justices Louis Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes. Frankfurter would regularly scout out law clerks for these justices from among his minions at Harvard Law School. Frankfurter was also an adviser to Franklin D. Roosevelt and sent many of his students to work in the New Deal.

Frankfurter was a prolific writer on and off the Court. He wrote often even when he was not the Court's main voice. He was an epistolarian in an age where letter-writing was on the wane. He had a brisk and energetic style to all that he did. To this day, his opinions stand out in relation to his colleagues' colorless prose.

Personal Information
Born Wednesday, November 15, 1882
Died Monday, February 22, 1965
Childhood Location Austria
Childhood Surroundings Austria
Religion Jewish
Ethnicity Austrian
Father Leopold Frankfurter
Father's Occupation Merchant
Mother Emma Winter
Family Status Lower-middle

Position Associate Justice
Seat 3
Nominated By Roosevelt, F.
Commissioned on Friday, January 20, 1939
Sworn In Monday, January 30, 1939
Left Office Tuesday, August 28, 1962
Reason For Leaving Retired
Length of Service 23 years, 6 months, 29 days
Home Massachusetts



source: http://www.oyez.org/justices/felix_fr...

Felix Frankfurter (November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Frankfurter was born in Vienna and immigrated to New York at the age of 12. He graduated from Harvard Law School and was active politically, helping to found the American Civil Liberties Union. He was a friend and adviser of President Franklin Roosevelt, who appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1939. Frankfurter served on the Supreme Court for 23 years, and was a noted advocate of judicial restraint in the judgments of the Court.

Early life
Frankfurter was born into a Jewish family on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He was the third of six children of Leopold and Emma (Winter) Frankfurter. His forebears had been rabbis for generations. In 1894, when he was twelve, his family immigrated to New York City's Lower East Side. Frankfurter attended P.S. 25, where he excelled at his studies and enjoyed chess and crap shooting on the street. He spent many hours reading at The Cooper Union and attending political lectures, usually on subjects such as trade unionism, socialism and communism.

After graduating in 1902 from City College of New York, where he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, Frankfurter worked for the Tenement House Department of New York City to raise money for law school. He applied successfully to Harvard Law School, where he excelled academically and socially. He became lifelong friends with Walter Lippmann and Horace Kallen, became an editor of the Harvard Law Review, and graduated with one of the best academic records since Louis Brandeis.

Early career
Frankfurter's legal career began when he joined the New York law firm of Hornblower, Byrne, Miller & Potter in 1906. In the same year he became the assistant of Henry Stimson, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. During this period, Frankfurter read Herbert Croly's book The Promise of American Life, and became a supporter of the New Nationalism and of Theodore Roosevelt. In 1911, President William Howard Taft appointed Stimson as his Secretary of War, and Stimson appointed Frankfurter as law officer of the Bureau of Insular Affairs, though Frankfurter in fact worked as Stimson's assistant and confidant. His government position restricted his ability to publicly voice his Progressive views, though he expressed his opinions clearly in private to friends such as Judge Learned Hand. In 1912 Frankfurter supported the Bull Moose campaign to return Roosevelt to the presidency and was bitterly disappointed when Woodrow Wilson was elected. He became increasingly disillusioned with the established parties, and described himself as "politically homeless".

First World War
Frankfurter's work in Washington had impressed the faculty at Harvard Law School, and a donation from the financier Jacob Schiff created a position for him there. He taught mainly administrative law and occasionally criminal law. With fellow professor James M. Landis he advocated judicial restraint in dealing with government misdeeds, including greater freedom for administrative agencies from judicial oversight. He also served as counsel for the National Consumers League arguing for Progressive causes such as minimum wage and restricted work hours. He was involved in the early years of The New Republic when it was founded by Herbert Croly.

When the United States entered World War I in 1917 Frankfurter took a special leave from Harvard to serve as special assistant to the Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. He was appointed Judge Advocate General, supervising military courts-martial for the War Department. In September 1917, he was appointed counsel to a commission established by President Wilson to resolve major strikes threatening war production, the President's Mediation Committee. Among the disturbances he investigated were the 1916 Preparedness Day Bombing in San Francisco, where he argued strongly that the radical leader Thomas Mooney had been framed and required a new trial. He also examined the copper industry in Arizona, where industry bosses solved industrial relations problems by having more than 1,000 strikers forcibly deported to New Mexico. Overall, Frankfurter's work gave him an opportunity to learn firsthand about labor politics and extremism, including anarchism, communism and revolutionary socialism. He came to sympathize with labor issues, arguing that "unsatisfactory, remediable social conditions, if unattended, give rise to radical movements far transcending the original impulse." His activities led the public to view him as a radical lawyer and supporter of radical principles, and he was accused by former President Theodore Roosevelt of being "engaged in excusing men precisely like the Bolsheviki in Russia."

Postwar
As the war drew to a close, Frankfurter was among the nearly one hundred intellectuals who signed a statement of principles for the formation of the League of Free Nations Associations, which aimed to increase American participation in international affairs.

Frankfurter was encouraged by Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis to become more involved in Zionism. With Brandeis he lobbied President Wilson to support the Balfour Declaration, a British government statement supporting the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1918, he participated in the founding conference of the American Jewish Congress in Philadelphia creating a national democratic organization of Jewish leaders from all over the US. In 1919, Frankfurter served as a Zionist delegate to the Paris Peace Conference.

In 1919, Frankfurter married Marion Denman, the daughter of a Congregational minister and a Smith College graduate. They married after a long and difficult courtship, and against the wishes of his mother, who was disturbed by the prospect of her son marrying outside the Jewish faith. Frankfurter himself was a non-practicing Jew, and regarded religion as "an accident of birth". Frankfurter was a dominating husband and Denman suffered from frail health, which resulted in frequent mental breakdowns. The couple had no children.

Frankfurter's activities continued to attract attention for their alleged radicalism. In November 1919, he chaired a meeting in support of American recognition of the newly created Soviet Union. In 1920, Frankfurter helped to found the American Civil Liberties Union. Following the arrest of suspected communist radicals in 1919 and 1920 during the Palmer raids, Frankfurter, together with other prominent lawyers including Zechariah Chafee, signed an ACLU report which condemned the "utterly illegal acts committed by those charged with the highest duty of enforcing the laws" including entrapment, police brutality, prolonged incommunicado detention, and violations of due process in court. Frankfurter and Chafee also submitted briefs to a habeas corpus application to the Massachusetts Federal District Court. Judge George Anderson ordered the discharge of twenty aliens, and his denunciation of the raids effectively ended them.

In 1921, Frankfurter was given a chair at Harvard Law School, and continued progressive work on behalf of socialists and oppressed and religious minorities. When A. Lawrence Lowell, the President of Harvard University, proposed to limit the enrollment of Jewish students, Frankfurter worked with others to defeat the plan.

In the late 1920s, he came to public attention when he supported calls for a new trial for Sacco and Vanzetti, two Italian immigrant anarchists who had been sentenced to death on robbery and murder charges. Frankfurter wrote an influential article for the Atlantic Monthly and subsequently a book, The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti: A Critical Analysis for Lawyers and Laymen. He critiqued the prosecution's case and the judge's handling of the trial and asserted that the convictions were the result of anti-immigrant prejudice and enduring anti-radical hysteria of the Red Scare of 1919–20. His actions further isolated him from his Harvard colleagues and from Boston society.

New Deal years
Following the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, Frankfurter quickly became a trusted and loyal adviser to the new president. Frankfurter was considered to be liberal and advocated progressive legislation. However, he was also a firm believer in judicial restraint. He argued against the extreme economic plans of Raymond Moley, Adolf Berle and Rex Tugwell, while clearly recognizing the need for major changes to deal with the inequalities of wealth distribution that had led to the devastating nature of the Depression.

Frankfurter successfully recommended many bright young lawyers toward public service with the New Deal administration, so many indeed that they became known as "Felix's Happy Hot Dogs". Among the most notable of these were Thomas Corcoran and Benjamin Cohen. He moved to Washington, DC, commuting back to Harvard for classes, but as with previous experiences, was never fully accepted within government circles. He worked closely with Louis Brandeis, lobbying for political activities suggested by Brandeis. He declined a seat on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts and, in 1933, the position of Solicitor General of the United States. Long an anglophile, Frankfurter had studied in Oxford in 1920, and in 1933–34 he returned to act as visiting Eastman professor in the faculty of Law.

Supreme Court
Frankfurter's Supreme Court nomination
Following the death of Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in July 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked his old friend Frankfurter for recommendations of prospective candidates for the vacancy. Finding none on the list to suit his criteria, Roosevelt nominated Frankfurter himself, and he was confirmed without dissent. The Senate confirmation hearing on the nomination of Frankfurter is notable for being the first time that a nominee for the Supreme Court appeared in person before the Judiciary Committee.[34] He served from January 30, 1939 to August 28, 1962. He wrote 247 opinions for the Court, 132 concurring opinions, and 251 dissents.

Frankfurter became the court's most outspoken advocate of judicial restraint, the view that courts should not interpret the fundamental law, the constitution, in such a way as to impose sharp limits upon the authority of the legislative and executive branches.[36] He also usually refused to apply the federal Constitution to the states.[37] In the case of Irvin v. Dowd, Frankfurter would state what was for him a frequent theme: "The federal judiciary has no power to sit in judgment upon a determination of a state court... Something that thus goes to the very structure of our federal system in its distribution of power between the United States and the state is not a mere bit of red tape to be cut, on the assumption that this Court has general discretion to see justice done..."

In his judicial restraint philosophy, Frankfurter was heavily influenced by his close friend and mentor Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who had taken a firm stand during his tenure on the bench against the doctrine of "economic due process". Frankfurter revered Justice Holmes, often citing Holmes in his opinions. In practice, this meant Frankfurter was generally willing to uphold the actions of those branches against constitutional challenges so long as they did not "shock the conscience." Frankfurter was particularly well known as a scholar of civil procedure.

Frankfurter's adherence to the judicial restraint philosophy was shown in the 1940 opinion he wrote for the court in Minersville School District v. Gobitis, a case involving Jehovah's Witnesses students who had been expelled from school due to their refusal to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance. He rejected claims that First Amendment rights should be protected by law, and urged deference to the decisions of the elected school board officials. He stated that religious belief "does not relieve the citizen from the discharge of political responsibilities" and that exempting the children from the flag-saluting ceremony "might cast doubts in the minds of other children" and reduce their loyalty to the nation. Justice Harlan Fiske Stone issued a lone dissent. The court's decision was followed by hundreds of violent attacks on Jehovah's Witnesses throughout the country, and was subsequently overturned in March 1943 by the Supreme Court decision on West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette. Former ally, Supreme Court justice Robert H. Jackson wrote the majority opinion in this case, which also concerned Jehovah's Witnesses students expelled from school for refusing to salute the flag. Jackson's opinion, which contradicted Frankfurter's on most points, elicited an impassioned dissent from Frankfurter. In it he rejected the notion that as a Jew he ought "to particularly protect minorities." He reiterated his view that the role of the Court was not to give an opinion of the "wisdom or evil of a law" but only to determine "whether legislators could in reason have enacted such a law".

In the apportionment case of Baker v. Carr, Frankfurter's position was that the federal courts did not have the right to tell sovereign state governments how to apportion their legislatures; he thought the Supreme Court should not get involved in political questions, whether federal or local. Frankfurter's view had won out in the 1946 case preceding Baker, Colegrove v. Green – there, a 4–3 majority decided that the case was non-justiciable, and the federal courts had no right to become involved in state politics, no matter how unequal district populations had become. However, the Baker case would settle the matter – the drawing of state legislative districts was within the purview of federal judges, despite Frankfurter's warnings that the Court should avoid entering "the political thicket."

Frankfurter reaffirmed this view in a concurring opinion written for the 1951 Dennis v. United States Supreme Court ruling. The decision affirmed, by a 6–2 margin, the conviction of eleven communist leaders for conspiring to overthrow the US government under the Smith Act. In it, he once again argued that judges "are not legislators, that direct policy-making is not our province." He also recognized that curtailing the free speech of those who advocate the overthrow of government by force, also risked stifling criticism by those who did not, writing that "[it] is a sobering fact that in sustaining the convictions before us we can hardly escape restriction on the interchange of ideas."

A pivotal school desegregation case came before the court in Brown v. Board of Education. It was argued, and was set for reargument when Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson died. It has been reported that Frankfurter remarked that Vinson's death was the first solid piece of evidence he had seen to prove the existence of God. It should be noted that this story was tied to a scheduled reargument in which Vinson's vote could be crucial (in Brown vs. Board of Education, where ostensibly Vinson was not disposed to overrule Plessy vs. Ferguson), and in any event, some believe the story to be "possibly apocryphal."

Frankfurter demanded that the opinion in 1955's Brown v. Board of Education II order desegregation with the phrase of "all deliberate speed". The phrase gave school boards across the country an excuse to defy the demands of the first Brown decision. For fifteen years, schools in the South remained segregated, until the Supreme Court's opinion in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education.[48] There, the Court would write that "The obligation of every school district is to terminate dual school systems at once and to operate now and hereafter only unitary schools."

Frankfurter was hands-off in the area of business. In the 1956 government case against DuPont, started because DuPont seemed to have maneuvered its way into a preferential relationship with GM, Frankfurter refused to find a conspiracy, and said the Court had no right to interfere with the progress of business. Here again, Frankfurter opposed the views of Justices Warren, Black, Douglas, and Brennan (though Frankfurter lost 4–3).

Later in his career, Frankfurter's judicial restraint philosophy frequently put him on the dissenting side of ground-breaking decisions taken by the Warren Court to end discrimination.

Frankfurter believed that the authority of the Supreme Court would be reduced if it went too strongly against public opinion: He sometimes went to great lengths to avoid unpopular decisions, including fighting to delay court decisions against racial intermarriage.

For the October 1948 court term, Frankfurter hired William Thaddeus Coleman as a law clerk, the first African American to serve as a Supreme Court law clerk.

Personal relations on the Court
Throughout his career on the court, Frankfurter was a large influence on many justices, such as Clark, Burton, Whittaker, and Minton. He generally attempted to influence any new justice coming in, though he managed to repel Justice Brennan – who had voted with Frankfurter half the time in his first year, but then opposed him after Frankfurter's attempts at inculcation. Frankfurter turned against Brennan completely after the case of Irvin v. Dowd. Other justices who received the Frankfurter treatment of flattery and instruction were Burton, Vinson, and Harlan. With Vinson, who became Chief Justice, Frankfurter feigned deference, though he sought influence.

Justice Frankfurter was in his time the leader of the conservative faction of the Supreme Court; he would for many years feud with liberals like Justices Black and Douglas. He often complained that they "started with a result" and that their work was "shoddy," "result-oriented," and "demagogic". Similarly, Frankfurter panned the work of Chief Justice Earl Warren as "dishonest nonsense."

Frankfurter saw justices with ideas different from his own as part of a more liberal "Axis" – these opponents were chiefly Justices Black and Douglas, but would also include Murphy and Rutledge; the group would for years oppose Frankfurter's judicially restrained ideology. Douglas, Murphy, and then Rutledge were the first justices to agree with Hugo Black's notion that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated the Bill of Rights protection into it; this view would later mostly become law, during the period of the Warren Court. For his part, Frankfurter would assert that Black's incorporation theory would usurp state control over criminal justice by limiting states' development of new interpretations of criminal due process.

Frankfurter's argumentative style was not popular among his Supreme Court colleagues. "All Frankfurter does is talk, talk, talk," Chief Justice Earl Warren complained. "He drives you crazy." Hugo Black reported that "I thought Felix was going to hit me today, he got so mad." In the Court's biweekly conference sessions, traditionally a period for vote-counting, Frankfurter had the habit of lecturing his colleagues for forty-five minutes at a time or more with his book resting on a podium. Frankfurter's ideological opponents would leave the room or read their mail while he lectured.

Frankfurter was close friends with Justice Robert H. Jackson. The two exchanged much correspondence over their mutual dislike for Justice William O. Douglas. Frankfurter also had a strong influence over Jackson's opinions.

Frankfurter was universally praised for his work before coming to the Supreme Court, and was expected to influence it for decades past the death of FDR. However, Frankfurter's influence over other justices was limited by his failure to adapt to new surroundings, his style of personal relations (relying heavily on the use of flattery and ingratiation, which ultimately proved divisive), and his strict adherence to the ideology of judicial restraint. Michael E. Parrish, professor at UCSD, said of Frankfurter: "History has not been kind to [him]... there is now almost a universal consensus that Frankfurter the justice was a failure, a judge who... became 'uncoupled from the locomotive of history' during the Second World War, and who thereafter left little in the way of an enduring jurisprudential legacy."

Retirement, death and legacy
Frankfurter retired in 1962 after suffering a stroke and was succeeded by Arthur Goldberg. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1963.

During World War II Frankfurter was presented with a historic opportunity to pursue a mission in the service of humanity.

In 1943, Jan Karski, an officer in the Polish underground, traveled to Washington as an emissary of the resistance to meet with Franklin Roosevelt and report to the President on the European conflict and specifically conditions in his own country, Poland. Roosevelt requested that Karski meet with Justice Frankfurter, as it would be of vital concern for Frankfurter, himself a Jew, to be apprised of the horrors befalling his fellow Jews in Poland. Frankfurter listened to Karski’s detailed accounts of the program of extermination of the Jewish people carried out by the Nazis. Karski provided his own eyewitness accounts of the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto and Belzec concentration camp.

Karski’s testimony of this conference with Frankfurter was recorded in an interview for the documentary film produced in 1978, by Claude Lanzmann ("Shoah"), titled "The Karski Report.”

“Karski reproduces, for Lanzmann's camera with a theatrical fervor that embodies the shock he felt upon hearing” Frankfurter render his verdict on the atrocities he had just heard. “I do not believe you.” The oral testimony provided by Karksi addresses the moral challenge presented Frankfurter and the human inability to "conceive the unconceivable and to recognize what Karski calls ' the unprecedented.' "

Felix Frankfurter died from congestive heart failure at the age of 82. His remains are interred in the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

There are two extensive collections of Frankfurter's papers: one at the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress and the other at Harvard University. Both are fully open for research and have been distributed to other libraries on microfilm. A chapter of the international youth-led fraternal organization for Jewish teenagers Aleph Zadik Aleph in Scottsdale, AZ is named in his honor.

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Fr...

This is a good add Alisa. Very interesting individual and quite a complex personality who I am sure will foster many discussions.

Yes, and another prolific writer. It will take awhile to get his books up but will embark on that little project soon.

Terrific.

I read a quote from his wife: "Do you know what it is like to be married to a man who is never tired?"

Amazing Peter.

Peter wrote: "I read a quote from his wife: "Do you know what it is like to be married to a man who is never tired?""

Ha! Love it.

This book is about a case in which Justice Frankfurter cast the deciding vote. The book is about the gruesome details of this case.

The Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder, and the Search for Justice in the American South
by Gilbert King

Synopsis
On May 3, 1946, in St. Martinsville, Louisiana, a seventeen-year-old black boy was scheduled for execution by electric chair. Willie Francis had been charged with murder; his trial had been brief; his death sentence never in doubt. When the executioners flipped the switch, Willie screamed and writhed as electricity coursed through his body. But Willie Francis did not die.Having miraculously survived, Willie was informed that the state would attempt to execute him a second time within a week. The ensuing legal battle went all the way to the Supreme Court, asking: Could the state electrocute someone twice? A gripping narrative about a brutal crime and its shocking aftermath, The Execution of Willie Francis offers a heroic—and ultimately tragic—tale of one man’s quest for moral justice in a nation still blinded by race.

Reason and History in Judicial Judgment: Felix Frankfurter and Due Process

by Richard G. Stevens (no photo)

Synopsis:

Stevens sees three crises in American judicial statesmanship. The first was the crisis of the founding. The well being of the country was subjected to grave danger, culminating in the crisis of the Civil War, and a refoundation was required. During the mid twentieth century The United States faced the possibility of destruction, World War II, and the finding of malfeasance of the nation in the office of the president. The constant excitement of contest with antagonists makes it difficult to say whether the current crisis of the Supreme Court is merely a continuation or a whole new problem.

The political leaders who resolved the first crisis and founded the Republic bequeathed as a part of that foundation the United States Supreme Court. During the subsequent history of the country, and with respect to its crises, the Court played a large part. Whether or not it does so well in the current period depends upon the quality of its judicial statesmanship. The judge is a person who acts. But it is considered action and considered action is based on prior understanding. The character of the Court's understanding, or direction, reveales itself in the course of its division over the application of the "due process" clause to state criminal proceedings.

Frankfurter's view is problematic. If Western civilization is to be preserved, it must be because it is worth preserving. If it is worth preserving it must be because it is good. If so, can it be preserved by reliance upon and reference to itself, or must reliance not be placed upon that by virtue of which the thing to be preserved is worthy of preservation? This problem is not new to Western civilization. Much has been written about Frankfurter, and common descriptions of the terms "restraint" and "pragmatism" to characterize his doctrines. Previous treatments of these doctrines now available have not seemed adequate. The intention of Reason and History in Judicial Judgment is to treat them as ethical problems rather than as self-explaining conclusions.

Thank you Kathy for updating these threads and this one in particular.

The Enigma of Felix Frankfurter

by H.N. Hirsch (no photo)

Synopsis:

A recognized, fascinating and much-cited classic of judicial biography and Supreme Court insight is now available in a quality ebook edition, featuring active contents, linked notes, proper formatting, and a fully-linked Index.

Felix Frankfurter was perhaps the most influential jurist of the 20th century--and one of the most complex men ever to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Mysteries and apparent contradictions abound. A vibrant and charming friend to many, why are his diaries so full of vitriol against judicial colleagues, especially Douglas and Black? An active Zionist, why did he so zealously enjoy the company of Boston Brahmins, whose snobbery he detested? Most puzzling of all: why did someone known before his appointment to the Court as a civil libertarian--even a radical--become our most famous and persistent advocate for austere judicial restraint?

In answering these and other questions, this pathbreaking biography of Frankfurter explores the personality of the man as a key to understanding the Justice. Hirsch sees in Frankfurter's fascinating and complex persona a clue to the biggest mystery of all: the contrast between the brilliant and ambitious young immigrant rising by his intellect and charm to leadership in U.S. academic and political life; and the judge, equally brilliant, but increasingly isolated, embittered, and ineffective.

The Enigma of Felix Frankfurter

by H.N. Hirsch (no photo)

Synopsis:

A recognized, fascinating, and often-cited classic of judicial biography and Supreme Court insight is now available in a new paperback edition. Felix Frankfurter was perhaps the most influential jurist of the 20th century-and one of the most complex men ever to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Mysteries and apparent contradictions abound. A vibrant and charming friend to many, why are his diaries so full of vitriol against judicial colleagues, especially Douglas and Black? An active Zionist, why did he so zealously enjoy the company of Boston Brahmins, whose snobbery he detested? Most puzzling of all: why did someone known before his appointment to the Court as a civil libertarian-even a radical-become our most famous and persistent advocate for austere judicial restraint?

In answering these and other questions, this pathbreaking biography of Frankfurter explores the personality of the man as a key to understanding the Justice. Hirsch sees in Frankfurter's fascinating and complex persona a clue to the biggest mystery of all: the contrast between the brilliant and ambitious young immigrant rising by his intellect and charm to leadership in U.S. academic and political life; and the judge, equally brilliant, but increasingly isolated, embittered, and ineffective.

"Hirsch's well-written book ... dispels the contradictory image that has long mystified students of Felix Frankfurter. His portrait is unvarnished, yet scrupulously fair. Revealed is a consummate manipulator of public men and policy. No future biographer can safely ignore the brilliant biographical work." - Alpheus Thomas Mason Princeton University

"Hirsch's carefully constructed and supported psychological analysis of Justice Frankfurter gives us an exciting look at the inner workings of the Supreme Court." - Martin Shapiro University of California, Berkeley A new addition to the Legal History & Biography Series from Quid Pro Books.

THE POLITICAL THICKET - June 10, 2016

Baker v. Carr
369 US 186 (1962)

When Chief Justice Earl Warren was asked at the end of his career, “What was the most important case of your tenure?”, there were a lot of answers he could have given. After all, he had presided over some of the most important decisions in the court’s history — cases that dealt with segregation in schools, the right to an attorney, the right to remain silent, just to name a few. But his answer was a surprise: He said, “Baker v. Carr,” a 1962 redistricting case.
 
On this episode of More Perfect, we talk about why this case was so important; important enough, in fact, that it pushed one Supreme Court justice to a nervous breakdown, brought a boiling feud to a head, put one justice in the hospital, and changed the course of the Supreme Court — and the nation — forever.


Associate Justice William O. Douglas (L) and Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter (R) (Harris & Ewing Photography/Library of Congress)


Top Row (left-right): Charles E. Whittaker, John M. Harlan,William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart. Bottom Row (left-right): William O. Douglas, Hugo L. Black, Earl Warren, Felix Frankfurter, Tom C. Clark. (Library of Congress)


Associate Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Whittaker at his desk in his chambers. (Heywood Davis)

The key links:

Biography Justice Charles E Whittaker by Oyez
Biography Justice Felix Frankfurter by Oyez
Biography Justice William O. Douglas by Oyez
A Roundtable Discussion on C-SPAN of Baker v. Carr

The key voices:

- Craig Smith, Charles Whittaker's biographer and Professor of History and Political Science at California University of Pennsylvania
- Tara Grove, Professor of Law and Robert and Elizabeth Scott Research Professor at William & Mary Law School
- Louis Michael Seidman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown Law
- Guy-Uriel Charles, Charles S. Rhyne Professor of Law at Duke Law
- Samuel Issacharoff, Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law, NYU Law
- J. Douglas Smith, author of "On Democracy's Doorstep"
- Alan Kohn, former Supreme Court clerk for Charles Whittaker, 1957 Term
- Kent Whittaker, Charles Whittaker's son
- Kate Whittaker, Charles Whittaker's granddaughter

The key cases:

- Baker v. Carr (1962)
- Bush v. Gore (2000)
- Evenwel v. Abbott (2016)

Other:
Link to NPR podcast: http://www.wnyc.org/story/the-politic...
Link to Supreme Court Oral Arguments: https://www.oyez.org/cases/1960/6

Facts of the Case:
Charles W. Baker and other Tennessee citizens alleged that a 1901 law designed to apportion the seats for the state's General Assembly was virtually ignored. Baker's suit detailed how Tennessee's reapportionment efforts ignored significant economic growth and population shifts within the state.

Question:
Did the Supreme Court have jurisdiction over questions of legislative apportionment?

Conclusion:

6 - 2 DECISION FOR BAKER
MAJORITY OPINION BY WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, JR.

In an opinion which explored the nature of "political questions" and the appropriateness of Court action in them, the Court held that there were no such questions to be answered in this case and that legislative apportionment was a justiciable issue. In his opinion, Justice Brennan provided past examples in which the Court had intervened to correct constitutional violations in matters pertaining to state administration and the officers through whom state affairs are conducted. Brennan concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment equal protection issues which Baker and others raised in this case merited judicial evaluation.

Discussion Topics:

1. Discuss why Chief Justice Earl Warren on his retirement in June 1969 felt that Baker v. Carr was the most important case during his tenure on the U.S. Supreme Court.

2. Discuss why it is felt that this case led to the Supreme Court becoming an agent for societal change resulting in increased politicization of the Court.

Source(s): Oyez, NPR More Perfect

Justice Felix Frankfurter



The only naturalized American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965), immigrated from Austria to New York in 1894. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1906, and later joined the school’s faculty. Throughout the 1920s, Frankfurter was influential both as a law professor and as a participant in public debates. He became a trusted advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, resulting in his nomination to the Supreme Court in 1939. While Frankfurter argued in favor of the regulations established by the New Deal, his perceived unwillingness to protect minorities and monitor the fairness of the political process left him at odds with other justices.

Frankfurter, the only naturalized American to serve on the Supreme Court, arrived in New York in 1894 from Vienna, Austria. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1906 after compiling an exceptional record. Because he was Jewish, he received no offers from private law firms commensurate with his talents, so he accepted an offer to assist the young Henry L. Stimson, who had just become the U.S. attorney in New York. Stimson took Frankfurter to Washington with him in 1911 when he became secretary of war in the administration of William Howard Taft. Frankfurter remained in Washington until 1914, when he joined the faculty of Harvard Law School. He performed important government service during World War I and participated in the Versailles Conference afterward.

Throughout the 1920s, Frankfurter was influential both as a law professor and as an active participant in public debates of the day, most notably in the controversy surrounding the conviction and subsequent execution of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti in Massachusetts. By 1933 Frankfurter had become a trusted adviser and confidant to the new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, although he rejected an invitation to become solicitor general of the United States. Frankfurter preferred to remain at Harvard, where he could identify bright young lawyers and encourage them to join New Deal agencies in Washington.

One of Frankfurter’s mentors was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who argued that courts should, with rare exceptions, defer to the decisions made by legislatures and the Congress. Frankfurter agreed. He was especially critical of the Court for striking down much New Deal legislation in 1935-1936.

Roosevelt named Frankfurter to the Supreme Court in 1939, to succeed Justice Benjamin Cardozo. Although some anti-Semitic opposition was voiced, his appointment was generally well received, especially by liberals who looked forward to Frankfurter’s becoming the intellectual leader of a ‘Roosevelt Court.’

Frankfurter and other Roosevelt-appointed justices agreed that the new regulatory state being established by the New Deal (and in many states by their legislatures) was constitutional. But they disagreed sharply over whether the Court should similarly acquiesce to the victimization of unpopular political minorities by majoritarian legislatures. Frankfurter wrote a controversial opinion in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), upholding Pennsylvania’s right to punish Jehovah’s Witness schoolchildren whose religious beliefs prevented their pledging allegiance to the American flag. (The Court reversed itself in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette [1943], over his sharp dissent.) Thereafter, Frankfurter, though a major figure on the Court, was regularly challenged by Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, and others who thought the Court should play a more active role in protecting minorities and otherwise monitoring the fairness of the political process. Indeed, Frankfurter’s last important opinion was a dissent in Baker v. Carr (1962), objecting to the Court’s willingness to assess the fairness of legislative districting.

Link to article: http://www.history.com/topics/felix-f...

Other:
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

Source: The History Channel

BIOGRAPHY

Felix Frankfurter - Supreme Court Justice, Educator, Scholar (1882–1965)



Associate Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter was a noted law scholar who served as the high court's leading exponent of the doctrine of judicial self-restraint.

Synopsis

Felix Frankfurter was born on November 15, 1882, in Vienna, Austria. A graduate of Harvard, he helped found the American Civil Liberties Union. When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, Frankfurter advised him on New Deal legislation. Frankfurter was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1939. He retired after more than two decades on the bench and died on February 22, 1965 in Washington, D.C.

Early Life

Born in Vienna, Austria on November 15, 1882, future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter came to the United States in his early teens. He grew up poor on New York City's Lower East Side with five siblings. His father did his best to support the family, working as a merchant. Frankfurter came from a learned and religious family with many members who were rabbis over the generations, and he proved to be quite bright in his own right early on. Despite knowing no English in the beginning, Frankfurter managed to excel in his studies in public school.

Frankfurter graduated from the City College of New York in 1902 and went on to attend Harvard Law School, completing his degree in 1906. One of his first jobs as a lawyer was at the office of Henry L. Stimson, then the U.S. attorney for the Southern District. Frankfurter served as an assistant to Stimson, whom he greatly admired.

Lawyer and Professor

Frankfurter continued his association with Stimson over the years. Stimson helped him win a position at the Department of War's Bureau of Insular Affairs during President William Howard Taft's administration. Around this same time, Frankfurter became friends with Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

After spending 1910 to 1914 in Washington, D.C., Frankfurter returned to Harvard, this time as a faculty member. He taught courses on Constitutional and administrative law. During World War I, Frankfurter returned to Washington to work with Secretary of War Newton Baker as an assistant. He also became chairman of the War Labor Policies Board, overseeing labor disputes across the nation.

To advance the creation of a Jewish state, Frankfurter attended the Versailles Peace Conference in 1919. He didn't practice his Jewish faith, but he was a lifelong supporter of Jewish causes. Frankfurter soon returned to work at Harvard. While teaching at the university, he became one of the founders of the American Civil Liberties Union. He was also an outspoken critic of the Sacco-Vanzetti case, in which two Italian Americans with radical political ties were convicted of murder and robbery.

Supreme Court Justice

In 1939, President Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated Frankfurter for the U.S. Supreme Court. Frankfurter found himself challenged by some in his congressional hearing on his work with the ACLU, with one senator asking him about a link between the ACLU and Communism. Frankfurter replied that the organization had "no relation to Communism, except that if a Communist claimed the protection of the Constitution, the American Civil Liberties Union would be within its rights and duty to see that he got that constitutional protection," according to The New York Times.

Frankfurter's nomination was approved that January, and he took the bench later that month. He was the third Jewish Supreme Court justice, following Benjamin Cardozo and Louis Brandeis, with the latter resigning that same year. While he was a champion of civil liberties, Frankfurter supported the limitation or restriction of these liberties in certain cases. He wrote the majority opinion for Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), which stated that a school district could compel its students to salute the flag. The suit had been filed by a family who objected to the practice on religious grounds. Frankfurter also sided with the majority in Korematsu v. United States (1944), which stated that the internment of Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals during World War II was constitutional. Yet in 1954, Frankfurter supported the groundbreaking decision in Brown v. Board of Education that made school segregation illegal.

Final Years

Frankfurter resigned from his position with the Supreme Court in 1962 after suffering a stroke. The following year, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon B. Johnson. Days after suffering a heart attack, Frankfurter died at the age of 82 on February 22, 1965, in Washington, D.C. He was survived by his wife, Marion, whom he married in 1919.

Link to article: https://www.biography.com/people/feli...

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by Helen Shirley Thomas (no photo)

Source: Biography

Thank you Lorna

Felix Frankfurter


Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter - Getty Images

By HISTORY.COM EDITORS November 9, 2009

The only naturalized American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965), immigrated from Austria to New York in 1894. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1906, and later joined the school’s faculty. Throughout the 1920s, Frankfurter was influential both as a law professor and as a participant in public debates. He became a trusted advisor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, resulting in his nomination to the Supreme Court in 1939. While Frankfurter argued in favor of the regulations established by the New Deal, his perceived unwillingness to protect minorities and monitor the fairness of the political process left him at odds with other justices.

Frankfurter, the only naturalized American to serve on the Supreme Court, arrived in New York in 1894 from Vienna, Austria. He graduated from Harvard Law School in 1906 after compiling an exceptional record. Because he was Jewish, he received no offers from private law firms commensurate with his talents, so he accepted an offer to assist the young Henry L. Stimson, who had just become the U.S. attorney in New York. Stimson took Frankfurter to Washington with him in 1911 when he became secretary of war in the administration of William Howard Taft. Frankfurter remained in Washington until 1914, when he joined the faculty of Harvard Law School. He performed important government service during World War I and participated in the Versailles Conference afterward.

Throughout the 1920s, Frankfurter was influential both as a law professor and as an active participant in public debates of the day, most notably in the controversy surrounding the conviction and subsequent execution of the anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti in Massachusetts. By 1933 Frankfurter had become a trusted adviser and confidant to the new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, although he rejected an invitation to become solicitor general of the United States. Frankfurter preferred to remain at Harvard, where he could identify bright young lawyers and encourage them to join New Deal agencies in Washington.

One of Frankfurter’s mentors was Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who argued that courts should, with rare exceptions, defer to the decisions made by legislatures and the Congress. Frankfurter agreed. He was especially critical of the Court for striking down much New Deal legislation in 1935-1936.

Roosevelt named Frankfurter to the Supreme Court in 1939, to succeed Justice Benjamin Cardozo. Although some anti-Semitic opposition was voiced, his appointment was generally well received, especially by liberals who looked forward to Frankfurter’s becoming the intellectual leader of a ‘Roosevelt Court.’

Frankfurter and other Roosevelt-appointed justices agreed that the new regulatory state being established by the New Deal (and in many states by their legislatures) was constitutional. But they disagreed sharply over whether the Court should similarly acquiesce to the victimization of unpopular political minorities by majoritarian legislatures. Frankfurter wrote a controversial opinion in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), upholding Pennsylvania’s right to punish Jehovah’s Witness schoolchildren whose religious beliefs prevented their pledging allegiance to the American flag. (The Court reversed itself in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette [1943], over his sharp dissent.) Thereafter, Frankfurter, though a major figure on the Court, was regularly challenged by Hugo Black, William O. Douglas, and others who thought the Court should play a more active role in protecting minorities and otherwise monitoring the fairness of the political process. Indeed, Frankfurter’s last important opinion was a dissent in Baker v. Carr (1962), objecting to the Court’s willingness to assess the fairness of legislative districting.

Link to article: https://www.history.com/topics/us-gov...

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by Jeffrey D. Hockett (no photo)

Source: History.com

JOHN F. KENNEDY
35th President of the United States: 1961 ‐ 1963

Letter to Justice Frankfurter Upon His Retirement From the Supreme Court.


August 29, 1962

My dear Mr. Justice Frankfurter:

Your retirement from regular active service on the Supreme Court ends a long and illustrious chapter in your life, and I understand well how hard a choice you have made. Along with all your host of friends I have followed with admiration your gallant and determined recovery, and I have shared the general hope that you would return soon to the Court's labors. From my own visit I know of your undiminished spirit and your still contagious zest for life. That you now take the judgment of the doctors and set it sternly against your own demanding standard of judicial effectiveness is characteristic, but it comes as an immediate disappointment.

Still, if you will allow it, I will say that there is also consolation in your decision. I believe it good for you as well as for the rest of us that you should now be free, in reflective leisure, for activities that are impossible in the demanding life of a Justice of the Supreme Court. You have been part of American public life for well over half a century. What you have learned of the meaning of our country is reflected, of course, in many hundreds of opinions, in thousands of your students, and in dozens of books and articles. But you have a very great deal still to tell us, and therefore I am glad to know that the doctors are telling you, in effect, not to retire, but only to turn to a new line of work, with new promise of service to the Nation.

Meanwhile, I should like to offer to Mrs. Frankfurter and to you, for myself and for all Americans, our respectful gratitude for the character, courage, learning and judicial dedication with which you have served your country over the last twenty-three years.

Sincerely,

JOHN F. KENNEDY

_________________________________________________


Note: Justice Frankfurter's letter of resignation, dated August 28, 1962, follows:

My dear Mr. President:

Pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. [Sec.] 371(b), 68 Stat. 12, I hereby retire at the close of this day from regular active service as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

The occasion for my retirement arises from the affliction which I unexpectedly suffered last April. Since then I have undergone substantial improvement. High expectations were earlier expressed by my doctors that I would be able to resume my judicial duties with the beginning of the next Term of the Court, commencing October 1. However, they now advise me that the stepped-up therapy essential to that end involves hazards which might jeopardize the useful years they anticipate still lie ahead for me.

The Court should not enter its new Term with uncertainty as to whether I might later be able to return to unrestricted duty. To retain my seat on the basis of a diminished work schedule would not comport with my own philosophy or with the demands of the business of the Court. I am thus left with no choice but to regard my period of active service on the Court as having run its course.

I need hardly tell you, Mr. President, of the reluctance with which I leave the institution whose concerns have been the absorbing interest of my life. May I again convey to you my gratitude for your call upon me during the summer and for the solicitude you were kind enough to express.

With high respect and esteem,
Faithfully yours,

FELIX FRANKFURTER

Link to article: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/docum...

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by Felix Frankfurter (no photo)

Source: The American Presidency Project

An upcoming book:
Release date: August 23, 2022

Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment

by Brad Snyder (no photo)

Synopsis:

Scholars have portrayed Felix Frankfurter―Harvard law professor and Supreme Court justice―as a judicial failure, a liberal lawyer turned conservative justice, and Warren Court villain. Yet as Brad Snyder reveals, Frankfurter was a pro-government, pro–civil rights liberal. He helped found the ACLU, rejected shifting political labels, and practiced judicial restraint. A disciple of Oliver Wendell Holmes and a protégé of Louis Brandeis, he thrived as a power broker for FDR and as a talent scout for the liberal establishment. (Former students and clerks included Dean Acheson, Elliot Richardson, and Richard Goodwin.)

This sweeping narrative illuminates how an Austrian immigrant befriended presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, led calls for a new trial for Sacco and Vanzetti, and helped achieve a unanimous opinion in Brown v. Board of Education. The result is a full and fascinating portrait of a lawyer and Supreme Court justice who championed democracy.

Oh, my Goodness, Jerome! you have got to stop reading these fascinating books, or at least, telling us about them … my TBR List will never forgive me if I don’t add this one …
Regards,
Andrea