Earl Warren

Earl Warren, (1891-1974) was an American stateman and judge, best known for his role as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1953 to 1969. He was a liberal Republican, serving as governor of California, 1943-53, and as the GOP nominee fgor Vice President in 1948. He was one of the most influential Chief Justices, providing a liberal interprtetation of the Constitution that led to desegreagtion of all public schools, reapportionment on the bases of one-person one vote, ending of school-sanctioned prayers, and liberalization the criminal laws to protect the accused. He made the Court a power center on a more even base with Congress and the presidency especially through four landmark decisions: "Brown v. Board of Education" (1954), "Gideon v. Wainwright" (1963), "Reynolds v. Sims" (1964), and "Miranda v. Arizona" (1966).

Early Professional Life

Warren was born in Los Angeles, the son of Methias H. ("Matt") Warren, a railroad worker, and Christine Hernlund. After Matt was blacklisted for joining in a strike, the family moved to Bakersfield, California, in 1894, where the father worked in a railroad repair yard, and the son had summer jobs in railroading. Warren always recalled how big corporations could dominate the lives of their employees and how powerless minority members were when faced with discrimination. He was strongly influenced by the reform currents of the Progressive Era to oppose corruption and promote democracy.

Warren graduated from Kern County High School and then attended college and law school at the University of California at Berkeley, earning a B.L. in 1912 and a LL.B. in 1914. He worked for a law firm before serving briefly in the army in 1918. He built his career at the Alameda County district attorney's office 1920-38. In 1926 he was elected to the first of three terms as district attorney. In 1925, he married Nina Palmquist Meyers, a widow with a young son. Warren adopted him, and the couple had five more children.

Shortly after taking office, irregularities were uncovered in the city of Oakland, the largest city in Alameda county. Warren vigorously investigated allegations that a deputy sheriff was taking bribes in connection with street-paving arrangements.

Warren soon gained a statewide reputation as a tough, no-nonsense district attorney who fought corruption in government; a 1931 survey voted listed him as the best district attorney in the country. He ran his office in a nonpartisan manner and strongly supported the autonomy of law enforcement agencies. But he also believed that police and prosecutors had to act fairly, and much of what would later lie at the heart of the Warren Court's revolution in criminal justice can be traced back to his days as an active prosecuting attorney.

State office

In 1938, Warren ran successfully for the California attorney generalship. He expanded the office, and built greater cooperation among various law enforcement agencies. By 1942, Warren was one of the most popular officials in California, and he ran for and was elected governor on the Republican ticket. He was reelected in 1946 and 1950.

As governor Warren modernized the office of governor, and state government generally.

Like all progressives, Warren believed in efficiency and planning. During World War II he aggressively pursued postwar economic planning. Fearing another postwar decline that would rival the depression years, Governor Earl Warren initiated public works projects similar to those of the New Deal to capitalize on wartime tax surpluses and provide jobs for returning veterans. Warren also built up the state's higher education system based on the University of California and its vast network of small universities and community colleges. For example, his support of the Collier-Burns Act in 1947 raised gasoline taxes that funded a massive program of freeway construction. Unlike states where tolls or bonds funded highway construction, California's gasoline taxes were earmarked for building the system. Warren's support for the bill was crucial because his status as a popular governor strengthened his views, in contrast with opposition from trucking, oil, and gas lobbyists. The Collier-Burns Act helped influence passage of the Federal-Aid Highway Act in 1956, setting a pattern for national highway construction.

Like all state, local and national officials in California, he supported the relocation of everyone of Japanese descent in 1942-44. For many years Warren defended the action, maintaining that it seemed the right and necessary thing to do at the time; in his memoirs, published after his death, he finally acknowledged that relocation had been an error.

Success as governor of a major state made Warren a national figure. In he was selected by New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey as vice presidential candidate. The GOP ticket was defeated by Truman, to the astonishment of virtually all observers and pollsters, who had predicted Truman's defeat. In 1952 he was California's favorite son candidate for president, but had to head off a revolt by Senator Richard M. Nixon who supported Eisenhower. Eisenhower and Nixon were elected, and the bad blood between Warren and Nixon was apparent. Eisenhower offered, and Warren had accepted, the post of solicitor general, with the promise of a seat on the Supreme Court. But before it was announced Chief Justice Fred Vinson unexpectedly died in September 1953 and Eisenhower picked Warren to replace him.

Chief Justice

Warren took his seat January 11, 1954 on a recess appointment; the Senate confirmed him six weeks later. Despite his lack of judicial experience, his years in the Alameda County district attorney's office and as state attorney general gave him far more knowledge of the law in practice than most other members of the Court had.

Warren's greatest asset, what made him in the eyes of many of his admirers "Super Chief," was his political skill in manipulating the other justices. Over the years his ability to lead the Court, to forge majorities in support of major decisions, and to inspire liberal forces around the nation, outweighed his intellectual weaknesses. Warren realized his weakness and asked the senior associate justice, Hugo L. Black, to preside over conferences until he became accustomed to the drill. A quick study, Warren soon was in fact as well as in name the Court's chief justice.

All the justices had been appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt or Truman, and all were committed New Deal liberals. They disagreed about the role that the courts should play in achieving liberal goals. The Court was split between two warring factions. Felix Frankfurter and Robert H. Jackson led one faction, which insisted upon judicial self-restraint and constantly warned about the judicial activism of conservative justices that had led to the constitutional crisis of 1937. For them, courts should defer to the policymaking prerogatives of the White House and congress. Hugo Black and William O. Douglas led the opposing activist faction; they agreed the court should defer in matters of economic policy, but felt the judicial agenda had been transformed from questions of property rights to those of individual liberties, and in this area courts should play a more activist role. Warren's belief that the judiciary must seek to do justice, placed him with the activists. although he did not have a solid majority until after Frankfurter's retirement in 1962.

Brown v. Board of Education

Warren acceded to the position of Chief Justice while Brown v. Board of Education was being reargued at the behest of Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, who ordered re-argument as a stalling tactic, to allow the Justice to gather a unanimous consensus around a liberal Brown opinion that would outlaw segregation. Associate Justice Vinson was one such stumbling block.

Warren convened a meeting of the associate justices, and presented to them the simple argument that the only reason to sustain segregation was an honest belief in the inferiority of African Americans. Warren further submitted that the Court must overrule Plessy to maintain its legitimacy as an institution of liberty, and it must do so unanimously to avoid massive Southern resistance. He began to build a unanimous opinion.

Although many justices were convinced, Warren spent some time after this famous speech convincing two holdouts for segregation to sign onto the opinion. The first holdout, Justice Vinson, died during this initiative. The second finally decided to drop his dissent to what was by then a moderate opinion backed by the remaining six justices.

Liberals consider Warren's final opinion a political masterwork, not just for his political gamesmanship, but for his general writing, making use of dubious social science research to draw legal conclusions, and laying the groundwork for forced racial busing.

The Warren Court, Continued

Chief Justice Warren authored a number of other cases, such as the case defining American citizens' Miranda rights. He was a judicial supremacist, and succeeded in asserting court power beyond what had previously been accepted.

Bibliography

• Belknap, Michael, The Supreme Court Under Earl Warren, 1953-1969 (2005), 406pp excerpt and text search
• Brest, Levinson, et al. Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking, Cases & Materials, 5th Ed., pp 898-950.
• Cray, Ed. Chief Justice: A Biography of Earl Warren (1997), the most comprehensive biography; highly favorable; strong on politics excerpt and text search
• Horwitz, Morton J. The Warren Court and the Pursuit of Justice (1999) excerpt and text search
• Lewis, Anthony. "Earl Warren" in Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, eds. The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions. Volume: 4. (1997) pp 1373-1400; includes all members of the Warren Court. online edition
• Newton, Jim. Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made (2006), solid biography by journalist excerpt and text search
• Patterson, James T. Brown v. Board of Education: A Civil Rights Milestone and Its Troubled Legacy (2001) online edition
• Powe, Lucas A.. The Warren Court and American Politics (2002) excerpt and text search
• Scheiber, Harry N. Earl Warren and the Warren Court: The Legacy in American and Foreign Law (2006)
• Schwartz, Bernard. The Warren Court: A Retrospective (1996) excerpt and text search
• Schwartz, Bernard. "Chief Justice Earl Warren: Super Chief in Action." Journal of Supreme Court History 1998 (1): 112-132
• Tushnet, Mark. The Warren Court in Historical and Political Perspective (1996) excerpt and text search
• White, G. Edward. Earl Warren (1982), by leading scholar

Primary Sources

• Time Magazine. "The Chief," Time Nov. 17, 1967
• Warren, Earl. The Memoirs of Earl Warren (1977), goes only to 1954
• Warren, Earl. The Public Papers of Chief Justice Earl Warren, ed. by Henry M. Christman; (1959), speeches and decisions, 1946-1958 online edition.
• Rawls, James J. "The Earl Warren Oral History Project: an Appraisal." Pacific Historical Review 1987 56(1): 87-97. Begun during the 1960s by the Bancroft Library's Regional Oral History Office, the collection includes more than 50 volumes of interviews recorded and transcribed during 1971-81, totaling about 12,000 pages.