William O. Douglas

For other people named William Douglas, see William Douglas (disambiguation).

William O. Douglas
Nominated by	Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Preceded by	Louis D. Brandeis
Succeeded by	John Paul Stevens

William Orville Douglas (October 16, 1898 – January 19, 1980) was a United States Supreme Court Associate Justice. As of 2007, with a term lasting thirty-six years and seven months, he remains the longest-serving justice in the history of the Court.

Early life

Douglas was born in Maine, Minnesota. His family moved to California, and then Cleveland, Washington. His father died in Portland, Oregon in 1904, when he was only six years old. His mother moved the family to Yakima, Washington, known as North Yakima at that time.

He attended Whitman College because his mother refused to pay for him to attend the University of Washington. Douglas was valedictorian of his high school class and, as such, received a scholarship to Whitman. After graduating in 1920 with a bachelors of arts in English and Economics, he spent 1920 and 1921 teaching high school in Yakima. However, he got tired of this and decided to pursue a legal career. He once said of his early interest in the law:

"I worked among the very, very poor, the migrant laborers, the Chicanos and the I.W.W's who I saw being shot at by the police. I saw cruelty and hardness, and my impulse was to be a force in other developments in the law."

Yale and the SEC

Douglas went to Columbia Law School and was in the same law class as Paul Robeson, graduating in 1925. He first took a job with Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a top Wall Street law firm, but quit after four months. After one year, he moved back to Yakima, but soon regretted the move and never actually practiced law there. After a time of unemployment and another months-long stint at Cravath, he went to teach at Columbia. He quickly jumped to join the faculty of Yale Law School.

At Yale, he became an expert on commercial litigation and bankruptcy, and was identified with the legal realist movement, which pushed for an understanding of law based less on formalistic legal doctrines and more on the real-world effects of the law.

In 1934, he left Yale to join the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Here he met Franklin D. Roosevelt and became an adviser and friend to the President. He became chairman in 1937.

On the bench

In 1939, Justice Louis D. Brandeis resigned from the Supreme Court, and Roosevelt nominated Douglas as his replacement. Douglas later revealed that this had been a great surprise to him—Roosevelt had summoned him to an "important meeting," and Douglas feared that he was to be named as the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. He was confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 62 to 4. Douglas was sworn into office on April 17, 1939.

Judicial philosophy

On the bench Douglas became known as a strong advocate of First Amendment rights. With fellow Justice Hugo Black, Douglas argued for a "literalist" interpretation of the First Amendment, insisting that the First Amendment's command that "no law" shall restrict freedom of speech should be interpreted literally. He wrote the opinion in Terminiello v. City of Chicago (1949) overturning the conviction of a Catholic priest who allegedly caused a "breach of the peace" by making anti-Semitic comments during a raucous public speech. Douglas, joined by Black, furthered his advocacy of a broad reading of First Amendment rights by dissenting from the Supreme Court's decision in Dennis v. United States (1952), affirming the conviction of the leader of the U.S. Communist Party.

Over the course of his career Douglas grew to become a leading advocate of individual rights against the government generally. For example, Douglas wrote the lead opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut, finding a "right to privacy" in the "penumbras" of the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights. This went too far for his old ally Black, who dissented in Griswold.

Trees Have Standing

In the landmark environmental law case, SIERRA CLUB v. MORTON, 405 U.S. 727 (1972), Justice Douglas famously, and most colorfully argued that "inanimate objects" should have standing to sue in court:

"Inanimate objects are sometimes parties in litigation. A ship has a legal personality, a fiction found useful for maritime purposes. The corporation sole - a creature of ecclesiastical law - is an acceptable adversary and large fortunes ride on its cases . . . .

"So it should be as respects valleys, alpine meadows, rivers, lakes, estuaries, beaches, ridges, groves of trees, swampland, or even air that feels the destructive pressures of modern technology and modern life. The river, for example, is the living symbol of all the life it sustains or nourishes - fish, aquatic insects, water ouzels, otter, fisher, deer, elk, bear, and all other animals, including man, who are dependent on it or who enjoy it for its sight, its sound, or its life. The river as plaintiff speaks for the ecological unit of life that is part of it."

The Rosenberg case

On June 16, 1953, Douglas granted a temporary stay of execution to Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the two alleged Soviet spies who had been convicted of selling the plans for the atomic bomb to the Russians. The basis for the stay was that the Rosenbergs had been sentenced to die by Judge Irving Kaufman without the consent of the jury. While this was permissible under the Espionage Act of 1917, which the Rosenbergs were tried under, a later law, the Atomic Secrets Act of 1946, held that only the jury could pronounce the death penalty. Since, at the time the stay was granted, the Supreme Court was out of session, this meant that the Rosenbergs could expect to wait at least six months before the case was heard.

When Attorney General James P. McGranery heard about the stay, however, he immediately took his objection to Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, who took the unprecedented step of reconvening the Supreme Court before the appointed date. On June 19, the Court ruled that the crime in question fell under the 1917 law, not the latter. The Court set aside Douglas's stay. Douglas, who had already left for vacation in Oregon, did not attend the proceedings.

Due to opposition to his decision, Douglas briefly faced impeachment proceedings in Congress. Attempts to remove him from the Court were unsuccessful, because the Democratic Party, of which Douglas was a member, held the majority.

Douglas and the counter-culture

During the 1960s, Douglas became a spokesman for liberal causes, writing a book published in 1969 entitled Points of Rebellion and controversially authoring a piece for "hippie" publication Evergreen magazine. Douglas also became a key supporter of the fledgling environmental movement, serving on the Board of Directors of the Sierra Club from 1960 to 1962 and writing prolifically on his love of the outdoors. He eloquently dissented from the Supreme Court's decision in Sierra Club v. Morton that denied the environmental group standing to sue. Douglas opined that the Court should create a federal rule that would confer standing on environmental objects and recognize environmental groups or persons with intimate contact with the objects to argue on their behalf. Douglas also is credited with saving the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal national park, going as far as to challenge the editorial board of the Washington Post to go with him for a walk on the canal after it had published opinions supporting Congress' plan to pave the canal into a road, which convinced the board to change its stance and helped save the park.

Douglas is also credited with swaying the court in the direction of preserving the Red River Gorge in eastern Kentucky: a proposal to build a dam and flood the gorge reached the Supreme Court. Douglas visited the area himself (Saturday, November 18th, 1967), and the Red River Gorge's Douglas Trail is named in his honor.

The 1970 Impeachment attempt

Although there is no doubt Douglas fully believed in his causes, his busy speaking and publishing schedule were also motivated by dire financial circumstances. Never a wealthy man, Douglas became financially straitjacketed by a bitter divorce settlement with his first wife and then sank more deeply into financial difficulty as settlements with his second and third wives essentially took his entire Supreme Court salary. As a result, Douglas took extraordinary steps to supplement his income, which besides publishing included becoming president of the Parvin Foundation.

While Douglas's efforts on behalf of the Parvin Foundation were in fact legitimate, his ties with the Foundation (which had been financed by the sale of the infamous Flamingo Hotel by casino financier and Foundation founder Albert Parvin) proved too much for then-House minority leader Gerald R. Ford to pass up. A number of additional factors came into play; besides being long disgusted with Douglas's lifestyle, Ford also had seen Douglas protege Abe Fortas resign because of ties with a similar foundation, and had a political axe to grind as the Senate had failed to confirm Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell to succeed Fortas on the Court. Thus, in April 1970 he moved to impeach Douglas, the first major modern era attempt to impeach a Supreme Court Justice. This was despite careful maneuvering by House Judiciary Chairman Emanuel Celler and the complete lack of proof that Douglas had done anything criminal (efforts by Attorney General John N. Mitchell and the Nixon administration to gather evidence to the contrary not withstanding).

The hearings began in late April 1970, and Ford was the main witness, attacking Douglas' “liberal opinions,” his “defense of the "filthy" film ‘I Am Curious Yellow,’” and his ties with the aforementioned Parvin. Additionally, he was criticized for accepting $350.00 for an article he wrote on folk music for the magazine Avant Garde. The magazine’s publisher had served a prison sentence for the distribution of another magazine in 1966 that had been deemed pornographic.

Describing Douglas’ article, Ford stated, “The article itself is not pornographic, although it praises the lusty, lurid, and risqué along with the social protest of left-wing folk singers.” Ford also attacked Douglas for the article in Evergreen Magazine, which was infamous for its proximity to pictures of naked women.

The Repubican congressmen refused to give the majority Democrats copies of the magazines, prompting Congressman Wayne Hays to remark "“Has anybody read the article -- or is everybody over there who has a magazine just looking at the pictures?”

When it became clear that the hearings were a farce, they were brought to a close, and no public vote on the matter was taken.

This effort and the struggles over the Fortas, Haynesworth, and Carswell nominations marked the beginning of the modern era of more partisan battles over Supreme Court nominees.

Records

During his tenure on the bench, Justice Douglas achieved a number of records and distinctions. Along with the longevity record, he also established the records for the most opinions written, the most dissents written, the most speeches given, and the most books authored by any member of the Supreme Court. He also achieved a few less savory records, such as the most wives (four), the most divorces while on the bench (three), and the most attempts at impeachment (three). None of these records has been surpassed.

Nicknames

During his time on the Supreme Court, Douglas picked up a number of nicknames, which were bestowed upon him by both his admirers and his detractors. The most common epithet was Wild Bill, which he received for his independent and unpredictable stances and cowboy-style mannerisms, although many of the latter were affectations for the consumption of the press.

Later in his career, Douglas also became known as The Great Dissenter and The Lone Ranger. The former referred to the record number of dissenting opinions that he had drafted over the course of his career, while the latter was an allusion to the number of times that his had been the lone dissenting vote in a case, which made up well over half of his estimated three hundred dissenting opinions.

In presidential politics

When, in early 1944, President Roosevelt decided not to actively support the renomination of Vice President Henry A. Wallace at the party's national convention, a shortlist of possible replacements was drafted. The names on the list included former Senator and Supreme Court Justice James F. Byrnes of South Carolina, former Senator Sherman Minton and former Governor and High Commissioner to the Philippines Paul McNutt of Indiana, House Speaker Sam Rayburn of Texas, Senator Alben W. Barkley of Kentucky, Senator Harry S. Truman of Missouri, and Associate Justice Douglas.

During consideration of the various candidates, it quickly became clear that Truman and Douglas were the two front-runners for the post; Truman because of his staunch support in Congress for every part of Roosevelt's New Deal, Douglas because of the personal friendship with the president, and both men because of the staunch support they commanded from various factions of the New Deal Coalition.

On the night that the vice presidential nominee was to be chosen at the convention, Committee Chairman Robert E. Hannegan received a letter from Roosevelt stating that his choice for the nominee would be either "Harry Truman or Bill Douglas." After allowing word of the letter leaked out, the nomination went without incident, and Truman was nominated on the third ballot.

After the convention, Douglas's supporters spread the rumor that the note sent to Hannegan had, in fact, read "Bill Douglas or Harry Truman," not the other way around. These supporters claimed that Hannegan, a Truman supporter, feared that Douglas's nomination would drive southern white voters away from the ticket (Douglas had a very anti-segregation record on the Supreme Court) and had switched the names to give the impression that Truman was Roosevelt's real choice. Evidence uncovered recently by Douglas's biographers, however, has discredited this story and seems to prove that Truman's name had been first all along.

By 1948, Douglas' presidential aspirations were rekindled by the extremely low popularity ratings of Truman, who had become president in 1945 on Roosevelt's death. Many Democrats, believing that Truman could not be reelected in November, began attempting to find a replacement candidate. Attempts were made to draft popular retired war hero General Dwight D. Eisenhower for the nomination. A "Draft Douglas" campaign, complete with souvenir buttons and hats, sprang up in New Hampshire and several other primary states. Douglas himself even campaigned for the nomination for a short time, but he soon withdrew his name from consideration.

In the end, Eisenhower refused to be drafted and Truman won renomination easily. Although Truman approached Douglas about the vice presidential nomination, the Justice turned him down. Douglas was later heard to remark, "I have no wish to be the number two man to a number two man." Truman instead selected Senator Alben W. Barkley and the two went on to win the election in what is widely considered to be one of the greatest upset victories in American politics.

Going into the 1960 presidential election, Douglas supported the nomination of Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson for President, because Johnson, a poker and drinking buddy through the mutual acquaintance of Johnson's personal attorney (and former Douglas employee) Abe Fortas, had promised that he would make Douglas his nominee for Vice President. After Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy won the nomination, which Douglas believed had been "bought" by Kennedy's father (another former Douglas associate), the Justice went on a week-long binge, during which he was heard to shout, "This always happens to me!"

Retirement and family life

On December 31, 1974, while on vacation in the Bahamas, Douglas suffered a debilitating stroke. Severely disabled, Douglas nevertheless insisted on continuing to participate in Supreme Court affairs, despite his obvious incapacity. In one of the most wrenching episodes in Supreme Court history, seven of Douglas's fellow justices voted to put any argued case in which Douglas's vote might make a difference over to the next term. At the urging of his friend and former student Abe Fortas, Douglas finally retired on November 12, 1975, after 36 years of service.

Douglas married four times. He was married to Mildred Riddle from 1923 to 1953, Mercedes Hester Davidson from 1954 to 1963, Joan Martin from 1963 to 1965, and Cathleen Heffernan (a law student many years his junior) from 1965 until his death, January 19, 1980. His first marriage produced two children, Mildred and William O. Douglas, Jr.

He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, near the grave of former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. The William O. Douglas Wilderness, which adjoins Mount Rainier National Park in Washington state, is named in his honor, as Douglas had both an intimate connection to that area and a deep commitment to environmental protection.[1]

Quotations

• The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person's] life.

• As night-fall does not come at once, neither does oppression...It is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become victims of the darkness.

• But our society- unlike most in the world- presuppose that freedom and liberty are in frame of reference that makes the individual, not the government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas. That is the philosophy of the First Amendment; and it is the article of faith that sets us apart from most nations in the world

• It is our attitude toward free thought and free expression that will determine our fate. There must be no limit on the range of temperate discussion, no limits on thought. No subject must be taboo. No censor must preside at our assemblies.

• These days I see America identifed more and more with material things, less and less with spiritual standards. These days I see America acting abroad as an arrogant, selfish, greedy nation interested only in guns and dollars, not in people and their hopes and aspirations. We need a faith that dedicates us to something bigger and more important than ourselves or our possessions. Only if we have that faith will we be able to guide the destiny of nations in this the most critical period of world history. -- 1952 This I Believe

• "Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. -- 1951, The One Un-American Act, A Speech to the Author's Guild Council in New York. available at http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/foryoungpeople/theoneunamerican/.

Dedications

The William O. Douglas Committee, a select group of law students at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington sponsors a series of lectures on the First Amendment, in Justice Douglas's honor. The honors college at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Washington bears Justice Douglas's name. An area of the Wenatchee National Forest east of Mount Rainier National Park is designated William O. Douglas Wilderness. A statue of William O. Douglas is in place in the courtyard of A.C. Davis High School, in Yakima, Wa.. At Whitman College, William O. Douglas Hall is a much-sought-after dormitory among second-, third-, and fourth-year students. Douglas Hall, an apartment for continuing students at Earl Warren College, at the University of California, San Diego is named for him as well.

Secondary sources

• Murphy, Bruce Allen (2003). Wild Bill: The Legend and Life of William O. Douglas. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-394-57628-4.
• http://www.ysd.wednet.edu/davis/williamOdouglas.htm

External links

• Points of Rebellion, by William O. Douglas

See also

• Lucile Lomen
• List of United States Chief Justices by time in office