Earl Warren Court (1953-1969)
Earl Warren was the 14th Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, succeeding Fred M. Vinson. Formerly the Governor of California, he was appointed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower during a recess of the Senate on October 2, 1953, and he was sworn into office on October 5, 1953. Eisenhower formally nominated Warren on January 11, 1954, and the Senate confirmed him on March 1, 1954. Warren served as Chief Justice until he retired on June 23, 1969 and was succeeded by Warren Burger.
Two bulwarks of liberal activism, Justices Hugo Black and William Douglas, had joined the Court well before Warren and remained on the Court after his departure. In contrast, several conservative Justices left the Court in the 1950s. Justice Robert H. Jackson died in 1954 and was replaced by Justice John Marshall Harlan II in 1955. (He was the grandson of “Great Dissenter” John Marshall Harlan, who spent over three decades on the Court.) Justices Sherman Minton, Stanley Forman Reed, and Harold Hitz Burton were replaced by Justices William Brennan, Charles Evans Whittaker, and Potter Stewart, respectively.
Justice Felix Frankfurter retired in 1962 after 23 years of battling his activist colleagues in defense of judicial restraint. President John F. Kennedy replaced him with Justice Arthur Goldberg, who served just three years on the Court before being replaced by Justice Abe Fortas. Kennedy also appointed Justice Byron White to replace Whittaker. The last appointment of the Warren Court was Justice Thurgood Marshall, who was the first African-American Justice in Supreme Court history. He replaced Justice Tom C. Clark in 1967. Like Brennan and White, Marshall would remain on the Court into the 1990s.
The Warren Court may have left a greater impact on the nation than any other era of the Supreme Court. It dramatically expanded civil rights and other constitutional protections. Critics at the time and afterward have attacked the Warren Court for activist decisions that tested the boundaries of judicial power. However, while later Courts tempered or retreated from some of the Warren Court’s boldest rulings, many of the principles that it established persist today.
To take two examples, the Warren Court ended racial segregation and carved out vital protections for criminal defendants. Its decision striking down segregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education may be the most celebrated decision in Supreme Court history. The Warren Court rejected the “separate but equal” theory that had justified Jim Crow laws since the Civil War, finding that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” Meanwhile, the decision in Miranda v. Arizona outlined the “warnings” that people under arrest (and viewers of crime dramas) routinely hear. These include the right to silence and the right to an attorney.
Associate Justices on the Warren Court:
- Hugo Black (1937-1971)
- Stanley Forman Reed (1938-1957)
- Felix Frankfurter (1939-1962)
- William Douglas (1939-1975)
- Robert H. Jackson (1941-1954)
- Harold Hitz Burton (1945-1958)
- Tom C. Clark (1949-1967)
- Sherman Minton (1949-1956)
- John Marshall Harlan II (1955-1971)
- William Brennan (1956-1990)
- Charles Evans Whittaker (1957-1962)
- Potter Stewart (1958-1981)
- Byron White (1962-1993)
- Arthur Goldberg (1962-1965)
- Abe Fortas (1965-1969)
- Thurgood Marshall (1967-1991)
Selected Landmark Cases of the Warren Court:
Author: Per Curiam
Topic: Free Speech
Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a state to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except when such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.
Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969)
Author: Abe Fortas
Topic: Free Speech
A student may express their opinions, even on controversial subjects, if they do so without materially and substantially interfering with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school, and without colliding with the rights of others. However, conduct by a student that materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others is not immunized by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech.
Duncan v. Louisiana (1968)
Author: Byron White
Topic: Criminal Trials & Prosecutions
The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a right to a jury trial in all criminal cases that would come within the Sixth Amendment guarantee of trial by jury if they were tried in a federal court. Crimes carrying possible penalties up to six months do not require a jury trial if they otherwise qualify as petty offenses.
Terry v. Ohio (1968)
Author: Earl Warren
Topic: Search & Seizure
When a police officer observes unusual conduct that leads him reasonably to conclude in light of his experience that criminal activity may be afoot and that the persons with whom he is dealing may be armed and presently dangerous, when he identifies himself as a policeman and makes reasonable inquiries in the course of investigating this behavior, and when nothing in the initial stages of the encounter serves to dispel his reasonable fear for his own or others' safety, the officer is entitled for the protection of himself and others in the area to conduct a carefully limited search of the outer clothing of such persons in an attempt to discover weapons that might be used to assault him.
Katz v. U.S. (1967)
Author: Potter Stewart
Topic: Search & Seizure
The government's activities in electronically listening to and recording the defendant's words violated the privacy on which he justifiably relied while using a telephone booth and thus constituted a search and seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.
Loving v. Virginia (1967)
Author: Earl Warren
Topic: Due Process; Equal Protection
A statutory scheme to prevent marriages between persons solely on the basis of racial classifications violates the Fourteenth Amendment.
Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966)
Author: William O. Douglas
Topic: Voting & Elections
A state violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard. Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth nor to paying or not paying this or any other tax.
South Carolina v. Katzenbach (1966)
Author: Earl Warren
Topic: Voting & Elections
Congress, as against the reserved powers of the states, may use any rational means to effectuate the constitutional prohibition of racial voting discrimination. The Fifteenth Amendment is self-executing and supersedes contrary exertions of state power. Its enforcement is not confined to judicial invalidation of racially discriminatory state statutes and procedures or to general legislative prohibitions against violations of the Amendment.
Miranda v. Arizona (1966)
Author: Earl Warren
Topic: Miranda Rights
The prosecution may not use statements stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination. Custodial interrogation means questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of their freedom of action in any significant way. Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that they have a right to remain silent, that any statement that they make may be used as evidence against them, and that they have a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed.
Griswold v. Connecticut (1965)
Author: William O. Douglas
Topic: Due Process; Abortion & Reproductive Rights
A state law forbidding the use of contraceptives violates the right of marital privacy, which is within the penumbra of specific guarantees of the Bill of Rights.
Katzenbach v. McClung (1964)
Author: Tom C. Clark
Topic: Powers of Congress
The power of Congress in the field of interstate commerce is broad and sweeping. When it keeps within its sphere and violates no express constitutional limitation, it has been the rule of the Supreme Court not to interfere.
New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964)
Author: William Brennan
Topic: Free Speech
A state cannot award damages to a public official for defamatory falsehood related to their official conduct unless they prove actual malice, which means that the statement was made with knowledge of its falsity or with reckless disregard of whether it was true or false.
Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. U.S. (1964)
Author: Tom C. Clark
Topic: Powers of Congress
Prohibiting racial discrimination in places of public accommodation affecting commerce is a valid exercise of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause as applied to a place of public accommodation serving interstate travelers.
Wesberry v. Sanders (1964)
Author: Hugo Black
Topic: Voting & Elections
The constitutional requirement that representatives be chosen “by the people of the several states” means that, as nearly as is practicable, one person's vote in a congressional election must be worth as much as another person's vote.
Reynolds v. Sims (1964)
Author: Earl Warren
Topic: Voting & Elections; Equal Protection
The Equal Protection Clause requires substantially equal legislative representation for all citizens in a state, regardless of where they reside. Legislators represent people, rather than areas, and weighting votes differently according to where citizens happen to reside is discriminatory.
Sherbert v. Verner (1963)
Author: William Brennan
Topic: Religion
A substantial infringement of an individual's right to religious freedom must be justified by a compelling state interest.
Abington School District v. Schempp (1963)
Author: Tom C. Clark
Topic: Religion
No state law or school board may require that passages from the Bible be read or that the Lord's Prayer be recited in public schools, even if students may be excused from attending or participating upon written request of their parents.
Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
Author: Hugo Black
Topic: Criminal Trials & Prosecutions
The right of an indigent defendant in a criminal trial to have the assistance of counsel is a fundamental right essential to a fair trial.
Baker v. Carr (1962)
Author: William Brennan
Topic: Role of Courts; Voting & Elections
Prominent on the surface of any case held to involve a political question is found a textually demonstrable constitutional commitment of the issue to a coordinate political department, a lack of judicially discoverable and manageable standards for resolving it, the impossibility of deciding without an initial policy determination of a kind clearly for non-judicial discretion, the impossibility of a court's undertaking independent resolution without expressing lack of the respect due coordinate branches of government, an unusual need for unquestioning adherence to a political decision already made, or the potentiality of embarrassment from multifarious pronouncements by various departments on one question. More specifically, an equal protection challenge to a legislative apportionment is not a non-justiciable political question.
Engel v. Vitale (1962)
Author: Hugo Black
Topic: Religion
State officials may not compose an official state prayer and require that it be recited in public schools, even if the prayer is denominationally neutral, and even if students may remain silent or be excused.
Mapp v. Ohio (1961)
Author: Tom C. Clark
Topic: Search & Seizure
All evidence obtained by searches and seizures in violation of the federal Constitution is inadmissible in a criminal trial in a state court.
Roth v. U.S. (1957)
Author: William Brennan
Topic: Free Speech
Obscenity is not within the area of constitutionally protected freedom of speech or press under the First Amendment.
Williamson v. Lee Optical, Inc. (1955)
Author: William O. Douglas
Topic: Due Process
The Due Process Clause no longer should be used to strike down state laws regulatory of business and industrial conditions because they may be unwise, improvident, or out of harmony with a particular school of thought.
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954)
Author: Earl Warren
Topic: Equal Protection
Segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race deprives children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities, even if the physical facilities and other tangible factors may be equal.
