NET Journal; The Warren Years, Pt 1

. . . . . . Last Monday, after 16 years as Chief Justice, Earl Warren retired, having led the Supreme Court through one of the most troubled and turbulent periods in American history.

His was a busy court, more than 1700 cases were ruled upon, many of them were controversial, many of the decisions were considered in some quarters little short of inflammatory. His was a humane court, for if any theme emerges from its record, it is a consistent devotion to the sanctity of individual rights, vis-à-vis institutions, corporations, and frequently the government itself. How well did the Supreme Court address itself to the words equal justice under law, the words carved in the Vermont marble facade of the court building, words meant to last the lifetime of the Republic. The answer lies in the record. At a time when other branches of government sometimes seemed unwilling to face up to the social revolutions sweeping the country, the court responded head-on. The Warren Court's first memorable decision was aimed at securing racial equality for all Americans, and this decision was to set the course of the court for the next 16 years.

The court sought to destroy segregation in the South by eliminating official racial discrimination from public school systems. In the process, its decisions gave impetus to the civil rights movement of the 50s, which evolved into the black revolution of the 60s. Its liberal orientation was gradual and not always consistent. At first, the court upheld much McCarthy period legislation, granting the government the right to inquire into a citizen's beliefs and associations. More recently, the court has moved to protect the individual's right of political association, reinforcing the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Warren Court's concern was for the average consumer who had been victimized by monopolies and price fixing conspiracies, and it sought to prohibit the merger of companies having substantial shares at the same market. In the area of constitutional separation between church and state,

the court created a storm when it ruled that the First Amendment prohibits the reading of state-composed prayers, the Lord's Prayer, or the Bible, in public schools. The court developed cautious standards in regard to obscenity, referring to risk public vulgarity rather than threaten artistic freedom. It found what it called pandering to be punishable. Later ruled, that states could prevent the sales to children of books they considered obscene. The court's momentum resulted in a new examination of the political structure. It held that growing urbanization was not being reflected in the voting process, and said that one man, one vote, must be the rule in electing congressmen and state legislatures. The administration of criminal justice was reformed when the court applied the bill of rights to defendants in state trials. It wrote a code of conduct for police and assisted on legal counsel for the poor. In an age of protest, the Warren Court often cited with the protester.

The court protected what it called uninhibited, robust debate. It drew the line at action which threatened injury, or damage, or was disruptive of orderly government. The Warren Court was constantly criticized for usurping congress's law-making functions. Unaffected by such charges, the court recently challenged for the first time in history the manner in which Congress conducts its own affairs. Arkansas Senator John McClellan invariably funded against the Warren Court. And if it is an attack on the court, if you want to construe it that way, remember, it is about solid because the court assaulted the Constitution. And I've heard great many people say to me, well, I agree with your opinions on these civil rights, all right, but don't you think you're going too fast? Of course, the answer to that is we have many things to say about how fast we go.

We go with the cases that come to us. And when they come to us with the question of human liberties involved in them, we hear them, and we decide them, or we let them go and sweep them under the rug and leave them for future generations. But the issues were not swept under the rug by the Chief Justice or by the men who served alongside him. Correspond to Joseph Foote profiles the associate justices of the Warren Court. A Chief Justice does not choose his colleagues on the court. He takes them as he finds them, as the complex individualistic men they are, liberals, conservatives, republicans, democrats. Earl Warren came to a court deeply divided between conservatives and liberals. It was a court of Roosevelt and Truman appointees. On the liberal side, there was Hugo Black, a prominent New Deal Senator, the first Roosevelt appointee. William O. Douglas, a New Deal administrator, professor at Yale Law School, where he taught Abe Portis,

noted conservationist and world traveler. Felix Frankfurter, professor at Harvard Law School, only five feet five inches tall, but possessed of a massive intellect. Friend and advisor of Franklin Roosevelt, a founder of the American Civil Liberties Union. Robert Jackson, a maverick liberal, former solicitor general, attorney general, chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. Those then were the liberals, Jackson, Frankfurter, Douglas, and Black. The conservatives were Reed, Burton, Clark, and Minton. Stanley Reed, a Kentucky lawyer and former solicitor general, now in retirement. Harold Burton, Republican Senator from Ohio, the first Truman appointee. Tom Clark of Texas, protege of Sam Rayburn and Tom Connolly.

Now in retirement as head of the Federal Judicial Center. Sherman Minton, country lawyer from Indiana, he sat in the Senate next to Harry Truman, who put him on the court. Those terms, liberal, conservative, or, if you will, activist, traditionalist, admittedly are arbitrary and subjective. But such labels can be helpful in analyzing the man of the Warren Court. All justices of the Supreme Court are sworn to uphold the Constitution. Often they disagree, however, about how to interpret the Constitution, about the meaning of the lean and simple language of that great document. We all know the major building blocks of our system of law. We may disagree about how that system works best. The liberal activist, a Jeffersonian, sees the Constitution as dynamic. He says of it, handle with care, but don't be afraid to handle. The conservative, traditionalist considers himself more strict and restrained.

Of the Constitution, he says, do not touch. Better to leave major changes in the law to Congress and to state legislatures, the elected representatives of the people. The law is complex, anyway you slice it, and no two justices, no two men, will necessarily interpret the words of the law the same way. On one issue, however, racial desegregation, the Warren Court was unanimous as it struck down Jim Proism. The court itself underwent changes in the late 50s. Felix Frankfurter, the new deal liberal, was moving steadily toward the conservatives, and new men were coming on the court. John Marshall Holland, grandson and namesake of a justice, road scholar, federal judge, staunch traditionalist. William Brennan of New Jersey, an activist emerging today as a scholarly prolific justice. Brennan had studied under Frankfurter at Harvard, but now the professor and his student were on divergent courses.

For his Frankfurter moved away from the activists, Brennan joined them. Next came Charles Whitaker, for 30 years a Kansas City lawyer, a traditionalist. Potter steward of Cincinnati, a traditionalist, the last of Eisenhower's five appointees. Byron Wizard White, Phi Beta Kappa, all America back at Colorado, Deputy Attorney General, and as Kennedy's first appointee, a surprise to some as he joined the traditionalists. Arthur Goldberg, noted union lawyer, Kennedy's second appointment to the court and his last. Goldberg replaced Frankfurter, who by now, the great traditionalist, the apostle of judicial restraint, had lost the reapportionment decision to the liberal block led by his former student Brennan. Frankfurter left the court that year, and an era ended. But with Goldberg succeeding him on the court, an era began. Goldberg provided the fifth and crucial vote for the liberals, with Brennan, Douglas, Black, and Warren. Now with a majority, they took control, and the famous liberal period of the Warren court began.

A rapid succession of milestone decisions followed, church and state, free speech, to write to counsel. Obscenity. Wiretapping. Limiting business mergers. The Warren court's liberalism continued, with the appointment of Thurgood Marshall, Solicitor General, and Civil Rights lawyer, the first Negro on the court. Abe Fortis, another liberal, replaced Goldberg, who became ambassador to the United Nations. Fortis, a vastly successful Washington lawyer, a trusted friend of Lyndon Johnson. Johnson nominated Fortis to succeed Chief Justice Warren last year, but opposition developed in the Senate, and the nomination was withdrawn. In May, Life Magazine disclosed that Fortis had entered into a business arrangement, with a foundation set up by a convicted stock manipulator. Fortis resigned, he said, to quiet the controversy.

Chief Justice Warren moved quickly to adopt and enforce a stricter code of ethics for federal judges. President Nixon nominated Warren Earl Berger, a federal judge, to be the new Chief Justice of the United States. Pundits say he will be a staunch traditionalist, but who knows, predictions about how men respond to the duties of the court are risky indeed. The court is now undergoing substantial realignment. Douglass and Brennan are firmly in the activist camp. Holland and White are firmly in the traditionalist camp. Black, the liberal, has been showing signs of conservatism. Stuart, the conservative, is voting more and more often with the activists. Marshall has not settled into a clear-cut position, and the replacement for Fortis has yet to be named. Chief Justice Warren said of his own court, we do not always agree. I hope the court will never agree on all things. If it ever does, I am sure that its virility will have been sapped, because it is composed of nine independent men who have no one to be responsible to accept their own consciences.

But one man had to bring all those diverse spirits together. One man had to exercise extraordinary powers of persuasion and statesmanship. One man had the option of writing or assigning opinions that would stand as landmarks of social change. That one man, of course, was the Chief Justice. Recently, when asked if this would be remembered as the Warren Court, he replied, I would like the court throughout its history to be remembered as the court of the people. They tell us that we are going to land on the moon. Next month sometime, the month of July. And I think that will be fine. It is a great accomplishment. There wouldn't be a great deal better if they taught us how to live in our great cities of New York and Cleveland. At age 78, Earl Warren is ending his judicial career as he began it, believing that the rights and dignity of the individual must be the primary interest of a democratic society.

For the last 16 years, the Californian, with the ingenuous face of every man, led the Supreme Court with qualities that reflected a deeper concern for human needs and denials than for the strict cannons of the law itself. If Warren became the symbol of the court, he also became the target of the reaction to his decisions. He took his appointment to the court as a mandate to broaden his horizons. As prosecuting attorney, they were the boarders of Alameda County, as governor, the boarders of California. But those who expected the narrow conservative Chief Justice would be surprised by Earl Warren. Biographer John Weaver comments, The decisions grow out of the man. The man's reverence for the law and for fairness. You see, above the Supreme Court are the words equal justice under law. And professors of law so often emphasize the word law. Warren, I think, has emphasized the word justice and the word equal.

Justice was not equal at the time. He became Chief Justice of the United States. It was not equal for the Negro, it was not equal for the poor, and it was certainly not equal for the urban voter. I think you have to understand the frontier world in which he grew up. He was born here in Los Angeles, but when he was about four or five, the family moved about 90 miles north of the town of Bakersfield. It was an oil and railroad town, lusty frontier place where gambling, and it was like bad westerns. Warren grew up in this atmosphere years later when he was a prosecutor. He knew all the tricks of the gambors, because gamblers in Bakersfield had told him about this when he was 12 or 13 years old. On his way home from high school, he would stop in the county courthouse and watch the trials. He'd watch murder trials the way we would watch Mathnees in our time. And out of this came a delight in the drama of law, but also a reverence for its order.

A law clerk to a justice needs a knowledge of the Constitution, and also a knowledge of the man he works for. In Washington last month, the former clerks to the Chief Justice met for their annual reunion. While the public or a Warren has revealed his philosophy in his decisions, the private or a Warren is best seen through the eyes of associates and friends. From their personal relationships with the Chief, the clerks give rare insights into the man. I remember when the other clerks and his clerks went into meeting for the first time, and he set us down, and after a few pleasantries said, he said, I want you to understand one thing. He says, you're under no obligation to agree with me in what I say and what I do. And you're under no obligation to hide from me what your views are on these things. He said, you just call them just exactly like you see them. Sometimes in the afternoon, he'd like to go for a walk when he was discussing some problem that was facing a decision or something.

And one afternoon, I was walking with him, and instead of going the usual route down into that park, he took a trip around the court. And as we were coming almost in front of the court, a big busload of tourists got out, and they all got their cameras ready. They were going to take a picture of the Supreme Court, and they just lined up just as the Chief was walking right in front of them. They said, wait a minute, hold it. Let's let this old man get by. And they did, and he very nicely thought it was the funniest thing, and he went on by so they could get their picture of the Supreme Court. I think one of the criticisms that is frequently made, that is the least informed and the least based, is that the Chief came to the Court without any notions about what the function of the Court was, without any notion of what the Supreme Court was supposed to do, and that in his 60-some years of public life before he came there, he was really living in a vacuum, and that he entered the court, and this was a foreign atmosphere to him.

That simply just isn't true. He had argued a number of cases before the Court as Attorney General California. He had been a prosecutor for a number of years in California. The courtroom was not an alien atmosphere to him at all. I think the kind of reputation that lingers about Earl Warren as governor at least of the state is one that is not particularly different actually from the feelings I have about the Chief Justice, which are basically ones in which the Chief Justice was then within the parameters permitted really by political realities in the state, very much for the little man, very much for the little man. I mean, the fact that a Republican governor in the state of California could be the one who introduced the first unsuccessfully, unfortunately, but the first Medicare program that was to be a state-supported Medicare program, that's an extraordinary thing given the circumstances in the situation. Warren, the consummate politician, described by a one-time political opponent, Robert Kenny.

He was a lucky governor, that is, he was a governor not during the Depression years, that he was governor during the war years when our California industry boomed. The post-war years of the boom had a post-war recovery. His timing as governor was very good. His real conflict came after he was governor, the tough years came as Chief Justice. He ran for reelection and I ran as a Democrat. Well, I went eight rounds with Warren that year and I'd ever even must his hair. And the worst part was he cross-filed against me and got the Democratic nomination as well as the Republican. I'm not saying that I don't want to capitalize on that large and beautiful family who has, but it always appeared in his campaign literature and I complained to him once. I said, are we running against each other for governor or is this a fertility contest? Every Sunday, he took them from Mrs. Warren and took them for the whole day.

And he always told me in our bill, he said, you do the same thing. And if they say they want to go to the zoo and then you get halfway there and somebody else says, well no, I'd rather go to the Smithsonian. Just remember, it doesn't matter. It's all time. That's all it's important. He'd do anything that we wanted to do. And all we had to do is express a bona fide interest and if it was not an improper thing to do, he'd do it with us. He likes all sports, both spectator sports. And I think he likes to participate from the standpoint of fishing and hunting and so forth, although I have to concede that when he goes hunting, he's more likely to be watching the clouds and the mountains and things of that sort that he actually stalking game. Since I was an established opponent of Warren, people would come from the east to find out what Warren's weaknesses were. Well the truth was, he's like a bowling ball. You can't just get a grip on him. He's not an easy man to oppose. And I know the Democrats search these records as a turning channel. They would never come up with anything tangible as they could use against him. And this is a very discouraging thing to have your opponent do to you.

Part of that record was Warren's role as California's Attorney General in the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. In the passion of the day, many considered this a necessary defense measure. But in the years since, it has come to be regarded as one of the most fragrant denials of civil liberties in American history. The man who was to make concern for the individual, the hallmark of his philosophy, knowingly joined the ranks of those who denied citizens their rights. This is something that the chief does not like to talk about. I remember the night of the so-called raid on Los Angeles, and it was a time of terror. And we did many bad things. People do do bad things, and war war itself is evil. And this is not absolving, or Warren, of blame for his part in it. But we were all guilty, and he erred along with Franklin Roosevelt and Walter Lippmann and Westbrook Pegler and a great many other people. Everybody recognizes now, at least I hope they do, that that was a tragic mistake. It was a tragic error.

But it's something all of a share, and we are, regardless of our ages, all had exactly the same feelings. We responded to probably the panic of other people, as well as to our own, and it was wrong. And I'm sure he recognizes wrong. I think he recognizes that then is wrong. But sometimes when you're in a martial situation, many things are wrong, and you have to abide by them anyway. I think that Earl Warren had to retool tremendously, to go from being a governor and a state administrator to Chief Justice, the United States, an administrator of the court system. And the fact that he could do it, and do it so successfully at age 63, shows that he was really a late learner. At the time when most men are looking up the charts and getting ready to retire is a remarkable feature.

It is not a strange thing for a man to change his mind when he gets on the court. I changed my mind when I got on the court. When you put on a robe and you take the oath to administer justice in accordance with law, you have a different responsibility from being a member of the executive or legislative branch. You then have the hard duty, the inexorable duty of decision. You could go in and battle with the chief, and he wanted you to battle, and he wanted you to take him on in terms of his views, and he was completely open to any argument. And he would respond, and it was a kind of detailed contextual conversation. At some point, he would say, however, okay, this is it, and his view about that is that once he had reached his decision, and I concur with the few very much, once he reached his decision, okay, that's the end of argument. When I was on the court, the court scarcely a day passed, when my secretary would say the chief is outside and wonders whether he could come in to see you, and he would drop in.

We were always on a first-name basis, although I called him chief, as I do now, the chief, but he was on a first-name basis with every member of the court. He did not stand on ceremony, although he had great dignity. He presided over the conferences with great fairness, and with great patience. But one of his great attributes was lack of animosity, even when votes were taken, and even when arguments were very vigorous. He was not only a humane man, he was a real pro. He knew that these were matters of differences on issues, and they never carried over to any personal feelings. I remember everybody saying when Warren was appointed to the court, he never had been a judge, he'd never been a great legal scholar, and I would say, well, the Supreme Court hasn't got anything to do with that kind of judging.

They're not deciding cases, they're deciding principles primarily. The term I clerked was Aaron versus Cooper, which was the case from Little Rock, in which Governor Fobbus had sought to stop desegregation that was had been ordered by the court. And in the course of the argument with the Arkansas Attorney General, I guess, or the City Attorney arguing, he said in support of not integrating the Little Rock schools, the people believe, and the Chief Justice lean forward, and he said, what people are you talking about, sir? I remember about the particular, the John Birch Society contest, I think he was who could write the best essay on why he shouldn't be Chief Justice, and I believe his comment was that he was going to hope that Mrs. Warren would enter, because she knew more reasons than anybody.

I don't think the Birch Society thing bothered him, he was, he has in his study in Washington, the original of that cartoon in the New Yorker, that was so wonderful of the little old lady that looked like Wister's mother, who was knitting the Impicero Warren sampler, he breaks him up, he thinks it's very funny. You know, he's fought that element of politics, be it in the Republican Party, or the right wing element of the Democratic Party, all his political life. And he's never had to be beholden in any way to those people, partly through fortuitous circumstances, because they never would support him. And so he never had any strings on him whatsoever with these people, and as a matter of fact, they opposed him constantly throughout his tenure as Attorney General, throughout his tenure as a three-term governor, and it was no different. We've always had a very substantial extreme radical right wing in California, and these people have always been against him.

It is the day we are all sitting in conference, deciding cases when a messenger came in and handed the Chief Justice a note. And he got very pale, and his voice broke. The first time I ever heard his voice broke. And he read to us the simple statement, tragic statement that President Kennedy had been shot. And then, without a moment's hesitation, he had joined the conference. And then we all, the Chief, and all of us crowded around the television set, because we did not know how fatal the shot was, and we sat there until the very sad news came about the death of the President. If there's anything that sticks out in my mind on a personal matter, it is that day when the President went to Dallas in November of 63.

And it sticks out in my mind the most. Matt, with pretty obvious this was a highly traumatic experience for me. I don't think in all the years that I've known my father. I've ever seen him go through a period that I felt was draining on him as of this. Of course, at the time, he was carrying basically three loads. He was carrying a tremendously heavy workload with the court itself on the decision end of it. They had many crucial decisions at that time. Secondly, he had tremendous administrative chores with the court. The full story of what went on in the commission, of course, has never come out, but I suspect that it was not an easy chore from the standpoint of the personalities involved. I imagine it was exceptional and difficult, even to get the parties to agree on what form the investigation would take. And it was very noticeable to me that this was taxing him extremely heavily. And I know that he personally had to relive constantly that assassination. And with his tremendous regard for the dead President, I just think that in itself was more than the man should be asked to do.

He came to Berkeley and he gave the keynote speech for a conference on human rights, which he's gotten, as we all know, very interested in. The whole thing was really marvelous. First of all, the students all over the campus just flocked in great numbers. And he got an absolutely enormous standing ovation that must have lasted three, four minutes as he came in. And it just struck me and it struck a number of others that he was probably, or he probably is the only national political governmental, or one of the only national political governmental officials who could evoke that kind of response from youth today from college youth today. And it was really just extraordinary. During the course of my research, I not only talked to I think all of his surviving high school classmates, but also as many of his college classmates, the class of 1912 at University of California, as I could locate.

And in most instances, his college classmates were terribly distressed by the turbulence on the Berkeley campus. And I was curious to know what he thought about it. So I asked him on time and his eyes lighted up. And he said, it was always a yeasty campus. He said, and then he started telling anecdotes about his own college years and the pranks they played and so on. And then he said, in substance. He said, this is, in my opinion, the, the finest generation of young people that this country has ever produced. And we are very fortunate indeed to have them. And I looked at it and I realized this man is so much younger than his classmates. They have grown old and he hasn't. On any journey, it is essential to know not only where we came from, but how we are to travel to our destination.

You know from your studies, something about how civilization reached this point. But your problem is to visualize what it will be 20, 30, 40, or 50 years from now. When your life plans are being fulfilled, if I were in your place, I would have deep concern about the status of the individual at those guide posts. Will he be living under free institutions according to the original American concept? Will governments still be his creature? Or will he be its creature? Will he be able to live with dignity according to his own conscience? Will there be equal justice under law for all Americans regardless of race or color or religion? Earl Warren has said that of all the decisions of his court, the ones that will have the most enduring effect on the nation will be those dealing with reapportionment.

Recently he said that if everyone in this country had an opportunity to participate in his government on equal terms with everyone else, most of those problems that we are now confronted with would be solved through the political process rather than through the courts. He went on to say that after reapportionment, the next most important areas of the court's work were in desegregation and criminal procedures, decisions that affected all of our lives, but especially those of the poor, the unrepresented, and the black. Over a hundred years of racial discrimination had created intolerable conditions of inequality and deprivation for the black minority. At the heart of the problem was segregation. In 1954, soon after Warren's tenure began, a Negro child, Linda Brown seeking a mission to an all white public school brought suit against the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. The court's unanimous decision in this case was the first in a series of civil rights decisions which was to change the lives of black people across the country.

It advanced a national ideal to eliminate racism. The lawyer who argued the case for the NAACP was Robert Conter. The NAACP lawyers had decided to make an attack on segregation and at the time, by 1950, which was the first argument I had made in the Supreme Court. A case was decided which held at the graduate level that segregation itself was a denial of equal educational opportunities. And on the basis of that decision, we decided in the NAACP that the time was ripe to make an all-out attack on segregation at the elementary school level. Like millions of other black children in the South, Linda Brown had been denied entrance to the school under laws permitting racial segregation. In 1896, the court had condoned this practice with its separate but equal doctrine which had permitted segregation in all areas of life in the South. Mr. Conter.

Chief Justice Warren, bright simply, the decision was well understood and he said that decision as beautifully as any judge could possibly have done. Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the tangible factors may be equal, to bribe the children of a minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. We conclude that in the field of public education, the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. The court's decision divided the country. White Southern reaction was angry and defiant. The man who argued more cases before the Warren court than anyone else, Jack Greenberg.

The Brown decision ran into such severe opposition, particularly from the Southern states, that we had almost a series of minor revolutions on our hands. We had little rock and New Orleans. We had all the declarations of interposition and nullification. We had the Congress of the United States or the Senate in any event that coming within a single vote of stripping the court of its jurisdiction. And during this period of time, that as a shortly after 54 and 55, the court did very little with regard to implementation, except to sort of play its role in declaring that these revolutions that as little rock and the like could not stand. The educational effect of the court's work, however, was profound during this period of time. And what happened was what became known as the movement began. And the court played its role with regard to that. It protected those in the movement who were being arrested and clubbed by police and so forth. It protected their first amendment rights of free speech. And ultimately, the principles proclaimed by the court and the activism of the movement led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1965, at which point Congress and the executive rights of the president and the court had all caught up with one another.

After the court ruled for the concept of school integration, it set out in 1955 to ensure implementation. It called for integration in public schools with all deliberate speed. This phrase was widely interpreted in the South as a signal that the court would tolerate delay. So the pace of integration was painfully slow. Eventually, the court became impatient with this open defiance and ruled in 1964 that further delays in desegregating school systems are no longer tolerable. In a recent decision, the court has provided strict criteria of compliance. For Jack Greenberg, it was another important victory. In the last term of court, in case of greening us, New Kent County, the court proclaimed that a desegregation order must work in order to be effective. It wasn't enough to have formal provisions like freedom of choice, which permit intimidation or permit the old habits of segregation to continue. In desegregating a formal segregated system, you'll have to have standards, which actually bring about abolition of the previous two sets of schools. You'll have to end up with a single unitary school system.

The Supreme Court essentially said was, look, we're not interested in excuses, it just got to work. And if this can't make it work any other way, and this is the way to make it work, well, this is how it's got to be. Having said that the court's record and the racial relations field is excellent, I have to make some modifications. One, I think that the court was in error, and it's all deliberate speed formula in terms of implementation of Brown. The court had good reasons for doing this, but this is a part of what Blacks are now complaining about. Because what the court really did in that decision was to say that we will sacrifice the rights to be individual Black child for its equal educational opportunity and postponement and put it all up in order that this decision will become more palatable and acceptable to the white majority. The court's goal was racial equality. Its decisions have sought to eliminate segregation in virtually every area of life. It has ended the poll tax, which have been widely used to limit Black voting. It has ruled against the drawing of political districts along racial lines.

It has sought to prohibit all racial discrimination both private and public in the sale or rental of property, but its power to achieve full racial equality is limited by the willingness of the nation to comply. Thus, after 16 years, the court's goal remains unfulfilled. Once the court had addressed itself to a quality of law for Black and White citizens alike, its next task was to secure equal rights for the citizens of our cities. By 1962, critics felt that the legislatures were grossly malapportioned in favor of rural areas. In a series of unprecedented decisions, the court said that federal and state legislative districts must be apportioned equally according to population. One man, one vote. The court had ventured into what had been regarded as the domain of Congress and state legislatures. Arthur Goldberg was Associate Justice of the Court at that time.

It took a lot of judicial courage to cross that bridge, because the tradition had been that this was not a judicial matter. I was on the court when those cases were decided. It seemed to me, as it seemed to the chief, and the majority of the court, that we could not justify that kind of decision. What can be more important in a democratic society than a man's vote? This is what our democratic society depends upon. In the first re-apportionment decision, Baker vs. Carr, the court said it had the right to evaluate apportionment of state legislatures. In a subsequent decision, Reynolds vs. Sims, the chief just as said, legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests. As long as ours is a representative form of government, and our legislatures are those instruments of government elected directly by and directly representative of the people, the right to elect legislators in a free and unimpaired fashion is a bedrock of our political system.

Senator Dirksen, the constant critic of the re-apportionment decisions, is interviewed by any T's Paul Niven. There isn't an eye or order of authority in the Constitution for the Supreme Court to apportion legislatures on that basis, and nobody knew that better than just to feel he's frank for it. Because he scolded the court and said they had no business venturing into this legislative ticket. This was an invasion of the domain of Congress. Just as Frank Fritter's angry dissent to the Baker vs. Carr decision, the court's authority possessed of neither the person or the sword, ultimately rests on sustained public confidence in its moral sanction. Such feeling must be nourished by the court's complete detachment, in fact, and in appearance from political entanglements, and by abstention from injecting itself into the clash of political forces and political settlements.

Now, then, people loudly proclaim, one man, one goat, what's wrong with it? I don't find anything wrong with it, he said. If I find this to be wrong, namely that if a legislature wants to do it, it's quite all right with me. But I'm not going to sit by if I can help it and see the court do it. Or is any candidate for a seat representing a handful of people likely to come out for the abortion of that seat? Well, the thing is a matter of balance in any state. And of course, you've got rural and you've got urban borders. Now, it could well be that a state is slanted in one direction or another in the abortion of their legislation. But there may be some reason for it too. But the court's decisions were implemented with a minimum of delay and drastically changed the makeup of election districts across the country.

In Connecticut, for example, before reapportionment, the town of Union with a population of 383 and the city of Hartford with a population of 162,000 had two representatives each in the state house. The new districts gave Hartford 10 seats and reduced Union to part of one seat. The legislators, fearing loss of their seats, were alarmed in critical of the decision. Connecticut State Senator John Lopton. Perhaps the worst decision the Supreme Court has ever made because there are minorities which need protection, which are not just minorities of people, minorities of local interests, rural interests, non-populous areas which need political protection, which is provided with proper safeguards to all the people by the reason of the fact that you have unit representation in one house, population representation in the other, and then the executive branch is elected by popular representation. But the court discovered there was a problem in determining fair districts. Yale Law Professor Alexander Pickle.

If you don't somehow evolve, some principle that explains what a fair district is and that enable the court to require the formation of fair districts and to prevent the formation of unfair districts. If you don't do that, it is quite apparent to me and I think it will soon be apparent to everyone that to have simply said one man, one vote, districts must be equal, is to have said something at best trivial, something that has at best some symbolic significance, but which is in practice in affecting the structure and operations of government, trivial. Unimportant. Indeed, there is some evidence that it may be worse than that. Even if a state is apportioned on the basis of equal population, you can still have political inequality. Here is how gerrymandering may be accomplished. Party A is strained to centered in the western third of the state, but statewide they are outnumbered by Party B.

By the criteria of equal population only, A could end up with no representation as in this example. Or with one seat out of three, depending upon which party was drawing the new lines. Professor Pickle feels the decision may make it easier to gerrymander in the future. That a legislature that is told that it has to apportion on a perfect one man, one vote basis, and is to disregard all other traditional indisha of apportionment like county lines or what have you. That such a legislature is thereby freed in a sense, more free than it would have been if it weren't under the one man, one vote mandate. Free in a certain sense, the gerrymandering accordance with partisan political objectives. All states now have reapportioned their legislatures. In this sense it has been a great victory for the court, but many thought that the decisions might revitalize our political system might save our crumbling cities.

While there is some evidence that more urban oriented legislation was passed by the new state houses, for most states it is business as usual. Gerrymandering continues to be an effective weapon to maintain the status quo and the court has declined to rule on this practice. As they had in reapportionment and race, the court continued to deal with the rights of the individual in its third major area, criminal justice. It found that the administration of the law, the technique of police interrogation and lack of counsel for indigent defendants, was hardly consistent with the bill of rights, and in decision after decision set out to protect the individual against abuse of power. The case of Gideon versus Wainwright, any person who is too poor to hire a lawyer cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him. Miranda versus Arizona, without proper safeguards, the process of incustity interrogation works to compel the suspect to speak where he would not otherwise do so freely.

Escobito versus Illinois, no system worth preserving should have to fear that if an accused is permitted to consult with a lawyer, he will become aware of and exercise his constitutional rights. Critics of these decisions voiced loud concern that the court was cuddling criminals. Senator McClellum. Increasingly, the court is fashioning new exclusionary rule. The effect of which is to render inadmissible, logical and positive, positive evidence of guilt, including voluntary confessions. Unequal justice, thus dispensed by the court in a number of these five four decisions, has trampled and disparaged the valid rights of society, while magnifying and exalting fictitious and exaggerated rights of the criminal. Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General and son of retired Justice Tom Clark.

The Supreme Court has to deal with the conflicts that our times create, and the conflicts between the poor and urban America and the police there are very real and very great. So they deal with such questions as the confession. What role does the confession play in law enforcement and in criminal justice in America today? The police have used interrogation, questioning, seeking to secure an admission or a confession in the 1950s and the 1960s. Very much as they used it in the 1890s and the 1910s. This prisoner was subjected to pretrial interrogation that would now be outlawed by the Miranda decision. Here is a recording of that interrogation. I told you what I got. I can't tell you anymore. Did you bust that woman's ribs? Did you smash her face to face? I know you're going to blow up on me. I like to have my sister call a lawyer.

Are you going to be the cold? Are you going to fall down? I know the truth. That's all I can tell you. Isn't it much better to go out for a man slaughtered and to go out for murder number one? The court ruled that confessions obtained in interrogations are inadmissible in court unless the suspect is first advised of his right to remain silent and his right to legal counsel. Many police officials feel this restriction will hinder their law enforcement efforts. Detective Russell Kruger, Minneapolis police. The more you talk to a man and the more he's going to admit that he's going to see more accidentally and he will on purpose. And especially if you start cunning him, you're going to say we want the police department cons, men and tricks, men. But what else do we have to fight with? Why should I, I'm a policeman. Why should I risk my life in the dark alley or in the hallway or in the street or in a chase with a car a hundred miles an hour? And danger my life. And I bring you in and there's your lawyer and you walk out.

Ramsey clock disagrees. We know this that the rich person charged with crime and the intelligent and the informed and the educated person and the hardened criminal and the organized criminal will not give confessions have not given confessions and are not going to give confessions. Whatever the law says, does this mean that we have two standards, one for the poor, one for the ignorant, one for the person who doesn't know his rights and the other for the wealthy, the advantage, the inform the person who knows his rights and knows how to protect them. The Supreme Court basically has said no, we have one standard equal justice. It is no more than informing the general public implementation of the court's decision to place on the precinct level. A basic rule to remember is that all statements and confessions must be given voluntary. You must advise the suspect of his right to remain silent.

The question remains, are most police forces complying with the court decisions, Ramsey clock? Most of the studies that have raised this question indicate that police compliance with the Miranda decision is far from perfect. In fact, in a number of jurisdictions, the indication is that the police are generally ignoring or disregarding the rule. That's intolerable. While many critics say these decisions tend to protect the criminal, others feel the court hasn't gone far enough. University of Pennsylvania Law School Professor Anthony Amsterdam comments. The most important areas of criminal justice are the bail area, whether or not one may be detained in default of enough money to buy his release before trial. Adequate representation of counsel. The guilty plea, because 80% of cases go off on the guilty plea, and because if persons are held in default of bail, and if they don't have Adequate representation by counsel, they will plead guilty. Sentencing, and then the probation in parole area. And in a case which goes through the process of the guilty plea, all of the Miranda and map and Ohio search and seizure decisions come down to nothing.

They mean nothing. Defend and plead guilty. He is convicted and he is sentenced. All of these important areas, which affect every case it goes through, the Supreme Court of the United States has essentially said nothing. There is great speculation as to what the new court will do amid the cries for law and order. Indeed, the new Chief Justice Warren Burger has already stated in a recent federal court opinion. This seeming anxiety of judges to protect every accused person from every consequence of his voluntary utterances is giving rise to myriad rules and exceptions, which even the most alert and sophisticated lawyers and judges are taxed to follow. But that will be another court. For the Warren Court, it was years of response to human needs, a search for racial equality, criminal justice, and equal representation. In these concerns, the court may be said to have expressed not only the will of the law, but also the conscience of the nation.

The court may be said to have expressed not only the will of the law, but also the will of the law and order. The court may be said to have expressed not only the will of the law, but also the will of the law and order.