Difference between revisions of "Tom Clark"

Revision as of 17:14, April 2, 2009

Tom C. Clark (1899-1977), served as the United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and, after appointed by President Harry S Truman, served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1967.

Justice Clark was the only Texan to have ever served on the U.S. Supreme Court, having graduated from the University of Texas in 1922. Clark resigned prematurely from the Court in 1967 because his son Ramsey Clark became Attorney General. As a retired Justice Clark was authorized to preside in eleven U.S. Circuits and in federal district court.

Justice Clark is best known for opposing the Communists during the Cold War, as one of four appointments to the Supreme Court by President Truman who consistently ruled in favor of anticommunist policies. Personally, Justice Clark worked the hardest at improving judicial administration.^[1]

Justice Clark voted with the Warren Court on criminal law, writing the majority opinion in the "exclusionary rule" case of Mapp v. Ohio. Justice Clark also wrote the opinion invalidating daily Bible readings in public schools in Abington School District v. Schempp.

President Truman became angry at Justice Clark when he voted against Truman's seizure of the steel mills in Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, despite Truman's impression that Clark supported as Attorney General the legality of the seizure.

References

1. ↑ http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/clark/clark.html