| Owen Josephus Roberts | |||
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| Former Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court From: May 20, 1830 – July 31, 1945 | |||
| Nominator | Herbert Hoover | ||
| Predecessor | Edward T. Sanford | ||
| Successor | Harold Hitz Burton | ||
| Information | |||
| Party | Republican | ||
Owen J. Roberts (1875–1955) served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1930 to 1945, when he resigned at the relatively young age of 70 in frustration over the Court's frequent overturning of precedents. He had apparently angered the liberal KKK member Justice Hugo Black, who petulantly refused to sign the customary letter thanking the retiring Roberts for his service[1] for fifteen years. In 1942, Roberts served as the request of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the Roberts Commissions, which investigated the attack on Pearl Harbor. Roberts's report was highly critical of the military.
Justice Roberts was a vacillator on the Court, sometimes joining the conservative Four Horsemen but then later switching to side with the New Deal in what was called "the switch in time that saved nine," in light of President Roosevelt's court-packing scheme. In his final years on the Court, Roberts was the only Justice not appointed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Roberts dissented in the Korematsu v. United States decision.