1.
Supreme Court of the United States
–
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest federal court of the United States. In the legal system of the United States, the Supreme Court is the interpreter of federal constitutional law. The Court normally consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight justices who are nominated by the President. Once appointed, justices have life tenure unless they resign, retire, in modern discourse, the justices are often categorized as having conservative, moderate, or liberal philosophies of law and of judicial interpretation. Each justice has one vote, and while many cases are decided unanimously, the Court meets in the United States Supreme Court Building in Washington, D. C. The Supreme Court is sometimes referred to as SCOTUS, in analogy to other acronyms such as POTUS. The ratification of the United States Constitution established the Supreme Court in 1789 and its powers are detailed in Article Three of the Constitution. The Supreme Court is the court specifically established by the Constitution. The Court first convened on February 2,1790, by which five of its six initial positions had been filled. According to historian Fergus Bordewich, in its first session, he Supreme Court convened for the first time at the Royal Exchange Building on Broad Street and they had no cases to consider. After a week of inactivity, they adjourned until September, the sixth member was not confirmed until May 12,1790. Because the full Court had only six members, every decision that it made by a majority was made by two-thirds. However, Congress has always allowed less than the Courts full membership to make decisions, under Chief Justices Jay, Rutledge, and Ellsworth, the Court heard few cases, its first decision was West v. Barnes, a case involving a procedural issue. The Courts power and prestige grew substantially during the Marshall Court, the Marshall Court also ended the practice of each justice issuing his opinion seriatim, a remnant of British tradition, and instead issuing a single majority opinion. Also during Marshalls tenure, although beyond the Courts control, the impeachment, the Taney Court made several important rulings, such as Sheldon v. Nevertheless, it is primarily remembered for its ruling in Dred Scott v. Sandford, which helped precipitate the Civil War. In the Reconstruction era, the Chase, Waite, and Fuller Courts interpreted the new Civil War amendments to the Constitution, during World War II, the Court continued to favor government power, upholding the internment of Japanese citizens and the mandatory pledge of allegiance. Nevertheless, Gobitis was soon repudiated, and the Steel Seizure Case restricted the pro-government trend, the Warren Court dramatically expanded the force of Constitutional civil liberties. It held that segregation in public schools violates equal protection and that traditional legislative district boundaries violated the right to vote
2.
United States Reports
–
The United States Reports are the official record of the rulings, orders, case tables, and other proceedings of the Supreme Court of the United States. Opinions of the court in each case, prepended with a prepared by the Reporter of Decisions. For lawyers, citations to United States Reports are the reference for Supreme Court decisions. Following Bluebook, a commonly accepted citation protocol, the case Brown, et al. v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, for example, would be cited as, Brown v. Bd. of Educ. The early volumes of the United States Reports were originally published privately by the individual Supreme Court Reporters, as was the practice in England, the reports were designated by the names of the reporters who compiled them, Dallass Reports, Cranchs Reports, etc. The decisions appearing in the entire first volume and most of the volume of United States Reports are not decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Instead, they are decisions from various Pennsylvania courts, dating from the colonial period, alexander Dallas, a lawyer and journalist, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, had been in the business of reporting these cases for newspapers and periodicals. He subsequently began compiling his case reports in a bound volume and this would come to be known as the first volume of Dallas Reports. Dallas continued to collect and publish Pennsylvania decisions in a volume of his Reports. When the Supreme Court began hearing cases, he added those cases to his reports, starting towards the end of the volume,2 Dallas Reports. Dallas went on to publish a total of four volumes of decisions during his tenure as Reporter, when the Supreme Court moved to Washington, D. C. in 1800, Dallas remained in Philadelphia, and William Cranch took over as unofficial reporter of decisions. In 1817, Congress made the Reporter of Decisions an official, salaried position, in 1874, the U. S. government began to fund the reports publication, creating the United States Reports. The earlier, private reports were retroactively numbered volumes 1–90 of the United States Reports, therefore, decisions appearing in these early reports have dual citation forms, one for the volume number of the United States Reports, and one for the set of nominate reports. For example, the citation to McCulloch v. Maryland is 17 U. S.316
3.
Morrison Waite
–
Morrison Remick Mott Waite was an attorney and politician in Ohio. He served as the seventh Chief Justice of the United States from 1874 to his death in 1888, Morrison Remick Waite was born in 1816 at Lyme, Connecticut, the son of Henry Matson Waite, an attorney, and his wife Maria Selden. Morrison had a brother Richard, with whom he practiced law. Waite attended Bacon Academy in Colchester, Connecticut, where one of his classmates was Lyman Trumbull and he graduated from Yale University in 1837 in a class with Samuel J. Tilden, who later was the 1876 Democratic presidential nominee. As a student at Yale, Waite became a member of the Skull and Bones, soon afterward Waite moved to Maumee, Ohio, where he studied law as an apprentice in the office of Samuel L. Young. He was admitted to the bar in 1839, and went into practice with his mentor and he was elected to one term as mayor of Maumee. He married Amelia Champlin Warner on September 21,1840 in Hartford and they had three sons together, Henry Seldon, Christopher Champlin, and Edward Tinker, and a daughter Mary Frances Waite. In 1850, Waite and his moved to Toledo, where he set up a branch office of his law firm with Young. He soon came to be recognized as a leader of the state bar, when Young retired in 1856, Waite built a prosperous new firm with his brother Richard Waite. An active member of the Whig Party, Waite was elected to a term in the Ohio Senate in 1849–1850 and he made two unsuccessful bids for the United States Senate, and was offered a seat on the Ohio Supreme Court. In the mid-1850s, because of his opposition to slavery, Waite joined the fledgling Republican Party, in 1871, Waite received a surprise invitation to represent the United States as counsel before the Alabama Tribunal at Geneva. In his first national role, he gained acclaim when he won a $15 million award from the tribunal, in 1872, he was selected to preside over the Ohio 1873 constitutional convention. President Ulysses S. Grant nominated Waite as Chief Justice on January 19,1874, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase died in May 1873, and Grant waited six months before first offering the seat in November to the powerful Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, who declined. He finally submitted his nomination of Attorney General George H. Williams to the Senate on December 1, a month later, however, Grant withdrew the nomination, at Williams request, after charges of corruption made his confirmation all but certain to fail. Finally, after persistent lobbying from Ohioans, including Interior Secretary Columbus Delano, on January 19,1874 and he was notified of his nomination by a telegram. The nomination was not well received in political circles, Waite took the oaths of office on March 4,1874. Chief Justice Waite never became a significant intellectual force on the Supreme Court, but his managerial and social skill, especially his good humor and sensitivity to others, helped him to maintain a remarkably harmonious and productive court. During Waites tenure, the Court decided some 3,470 cases, in part, the large number of cases decided and the variety of issues confronted reflected the lack of discretion the Court had at the time in hearing appeals from lower federal and state courts
4.
Samuel Freeman Miller
–
Samuel Freeman Miller was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court who served from 1862 to 1890. He was a physician and lawyer, born in Richmond, Kentucky, Miller was the son of yeoman farmers. He earned a degree in 1838 from Transylvania University in Lexington. While practicing medicine for a decade, he studied the law on his own and was admitted to the bar in 1847, favoring the abolition of slavery, which was prevalent in Kentucky, he supported the Whigs in Kentucky. Miller moved to Keokuk, in Iowa, a more amenable to his views on slavery. Active in Hawkeye politics, he supported Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election, Lincoln nominated Miller to the Supreme Court on July 16,1862, after the beginning of the American Civil War. His reputation was so high that Miller was confirmed half an hour after the Senate received notice of his nomination and his opinions strongly favored Lincolns positions, and he upheld his wartime suspension of habeas corpus and trials by military commission. After the war, his reading of the Fourteenth Amendment—he wrote the opinion in the Slaughterhouse Cases—limited the effectiveness of the amendment. In Ex Parte Yarbrough,110 U. S.651, however, Miller held that the government had broad authority to act to protect black voters from violence by the Ku Klux Klan. Miller also supported the use of federal power under the Commerce Clause to trump state regulations. Justice Miller wrote more opinions than any other Supreme Court Justice, after the 1876 presidential election between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden, Miller served on the electoral commission that awarded the disputed electoral votes to the Republican Hayes. In the 1880s, his name was floated as a Republican candidate for president, Miller, a religious liberal, belonged to the Unitarian Church and served as President of the Unitarians National Conference. Following his death, his funeral was held at Keokuks First Unitarian Church and he died in Washington, D. C. while still a member of the court. He is buried at Oakland Cemetery in Keokuk, Iowa, the Slaughter-House Cases,83 U. S.36 Murdock v. Memphis,87 U. S.20 Wall. 590590 United States v. Kagama,118 U. S.375 In re Burrus,136 U. S.586 Justice Samuel Freeman Miller House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Ross, Michael A. Hill Country Doctor, The Early Life and Career of Supreme Court Justice Samuel F. Miller in Kentucky, 1816-1849, The Filson History Quarterly, Vol.71, 430–446. Ross, Michael A. Justice of Shattered Dreams, Samuel Freeman Miller, baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press. Justice Millers Reconstruction, The Slaughter-House Cases, Health Codes, and Civil Rights in New Orleans, 1861-1873
5.
Stephen Johnson Field
–
Stephen Johnson Field was an American jurist. He was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from March 10,1863, prior to this appointment, he was the fifth Chief Justice of California. Born in Haddam, Connecticut, he was the sixth of the nine children of David Dudley Field I, a Congregationalist minister, henry Martyn Field a prominent clergyman and travel writer. He grew up in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and went to Turkey at thirteen with his sister Emilia and her missionary husband and he received a BA from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 1837. While attending Williams College he was one of the original Founders of Delta Upsilon Fraternity, in California, Fields legal practice boomed and he was elected alcalde, a form of mayor and justice of the peace under the old Mexican rule of law, of Marysville. The voters sent him to the California State Assembly in 1850 to represent Yuba County and his successful legal practice led to his election to the California Supreme Court in 1857, serving six years. During his time on the Supreme Court of California, Field had a coat made with pockets large enough to hold two pistols so that he could shoot at his various enemies through the pockets. In 1858 he was challenged to a duel by a fellow Judge but at the dueling ground, neither man fired his gun. In 1859 Field replaced the chief justice of the California Supreme Court, David S. Terry because Judge Terry killed a United States Senator from California in a duel. Oddly, Field and Terrys paths crossed again 30 years later when Field, acting in his capacity as a judge of the 9th Federal Circuit Court, ruled against Terry in a convoluted divorce case. Seeking revenge, Terry attempted to kill Field in 1889 near Stockton, California but was shot dead by Justice Fields bodyguard. Ironically, legal issues arising from the killing of Mr. Terry came before the Supreme Court in the 1890 habeas corpus case of In re Neagle. On March 6,1863, Abraham Lincoln appointed Field to the newly created tenth Supreme Court seat, the appointment would also give the Court someone familiar with real estate and mining issues. Field was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 10,1863, Fields vocal advocacy of substantive due process was illustrated in his dissents to the Slaughterhouse Cases and Munn v. Illinois. In the Slaughter-House Cases, Justice Fields dissent focused on the Privileges or Immunities clause, in both Munn v Illinois and Mugler v Kansas, Justice Field based his dissent on the protection of property interests by the Due Process clause. One of Fields most notable opinions was his majority opinion in Pennoyer v. Neff and his views on due process were eventually adopted by the courts majority after he left the Supreme Court. In other cases he helped end the tax, limited antitrust law. On racial issues, Justice Field is regarded to have had a poor record
6.
Joseph P. Bradley
–
Joseph Philo Bradley was an American jurist best known for his service on the United States Supreme Court, and on the Electoral Commission that decided the disputed 1876 presidential election. The son of Philo Bradley and Mercy Gardner Bradley, Bradley was born to humble beginnings in Berne, New York and he attended local schools and began teaching at the age of 16. In 1833, the Dutch Reformed Church of Berne advanced young Joseph Bradley $250 to study for the ministry at Rutgers University, while at Rutgers, he decided to study law instead, graduating in 1836. After graduation, he was made Principal of the Millstone Academy, not long afterward, he was persuaded by his Rutgers classmate Frederick T. Frelinghuysen to join him in Newark and pursue legal studies at the Office of the Collector of the Port of Newark. He was admitted to the bar in 1839, Bradley began in private practice in New Jersey, specializing in patent and railroad law, and he became very prominent in these fields and quite wealthy. Bradley remained dedicated to self-study throughout his life and collected an extensive library and he married Mary Hornblower in Newark in 1844. As a commercial litigator, Bradley argued many cases before various federal courts, Bradley was nominated on February 7 and was confirmed by the Senate on March 21, taking his seat on the court as an Associate Justice that same day. On moving to Washington, Bradley purchased the home that had belonged to Stephen A. Douglas. Bradley remained on the bench until 1891, when he became greatly weakened by disease and he took his seat on the bench in October of that year, but was forced to retire a few weeks later by failing health. He died a few months later, Bradley took a broad view of the national governments powers under the Commerce Clause but interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment somewhat narrowly, as did much of the rest of the court at the time. He authored the majority opinion in the Civil Rights Cases of 1883 but was among the four dissenters in the Slaughter-House Cases in 1873 and his interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment in both cases remained the basis for subsequent rulings through the modern era. This is the law of the Creator and this resulted in the federal governments bringing the case on appeal to the Supreme Court as United States v. Cruikshank. The courts ruling on this case meant that the government would not intervene on paramilitary. Bradley dissented in Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad v. Minnesota, bradleys opinion in this case is echoed in modern arguments regarding judicial activism. Bradley also wrote the opinion in Hans v. Louisiana, holding that a state could not be sued in a court by one of its own citizens. As an individual Supreme Court Justice, Bradley decided In re Guiteau, a petition for habeas corpus filed on behalf of Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President James A. Garfield. Guiteaus lawyers argued that he had been tried in the District of Columbia because, although Guiteau shot Garfield in Washington. Bradley denied the petition in an opinion and Guiteau was executed
7.
John Marshall Harlan
–
John Marshall Harlan was an American lawyer and politician from Kentucky who served as an associate justice on the U. S. Supreme Court. Harlan was born at Harlans Station,5 miles west of Danville, Kentucky on Salt River Road and he attended school in Frankfort and then graduated from Centre College. Harlan entered Kentucky politics in 1851, and served a variety of positions, most notably Attorney General of Kentucky, when the American Civil War broke out, Harlan strongly supported the Union, although he opposed the Emancipation Proclamation and supported slavery. However, after the election of Ulysses S. Grant as President in 1868, he reversed his views, in 1877, Harlan was appointed a member of the Supreme Court. A Christian fundamentalist, Harlans Christian beliefs strongly shaped his views during his tenure as Supreme Court justice and these dissents, among others, led to his nickname of The Great Dissenter. Harlan died in 1911, at the age of 78, John had several older brothers, possibly including a mulatto half-brother, Robert James Harlan, born in 1816 into slavery. His father raised him in his own household and had the boy tutored by Richard and James Harlan, According to historian Allyson Hobbs, Robert became highly successful, making a fortune in the California Gold Rush before returning east and settling in Cincinnati, Ohio. He remained close to the other Harlans, she suggests this might have influenced his half-brother John Marshall Harlan, after attending school in Frankfort, John Harlan enrolled at Centre College. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi and graduated with honors, though his mother wanted Harlan to become a merchant, James insisted that his son follow him into the legal profession, and Harlan joined his fathers law practice in 1852. Harlan finished his education in his fathers law office. A member of the Whig Party like his father, Harlan got a start in politics. He served in the post for the eight years, which gave him a statewide presence. With the Whig Partys dissolution in the early 1850s, Harlan shifted his affiliation to the Know Nothings, during the 1860 presidential election, Harlan supported the Constitutional Union candidate, John Bell. In the secession crisis that followed Abraham Lincolns victory, Harlan sought to prevent Kentucky from seceding. When the state voted to create a new militia, Harlan organized and led a company of zouaves before recruiting a company that was mustered into the service as the 10th Kentucky Infantry. Harlan served in the Western Theater of the American Civil War until the death of his father James in February 1863, at that time, Harlan resigned his commission as colonel and returned to Frankfort to support his family. Three weeks after leaving the army, Harlan was nominated by the Union Party as their nominee to become the Attorney General of Kentucky, campaigning on a platform of vigorous prosecution of the war, he won the election by a considerable margin. As attorney general for the state, Harlan issued legal opinions, after losing a bid for re-election as attorney general, Harlan joined the Republican Party in 1868
8.
William Burnham Woods
–
William Burnham Woods was a United States Circuit Judge and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court as well as an Ohio politician and soldier in the Civil War. Woods was born on August 3,1824, in Newark and he was the older brother of Charles R. Woods, another future Civil War general. He attended college at both Western Reserve University in Hudson, Ohio, before transferring to Yale University, from which he received an Artium Baccalaureus in 1845 with honors. After graduating he returned home to Newark, Ohio, and read law by clerking for S. D. King, Woods ended up partnering with his mentor, King, and entered into a legal practice together in Newark, from 1847 to 1862. Woods, a loyal Democrat, was elected Mayor of Newark in 1856, although Woods opposed the Civil War, because he opposed slavery, he came to accept a Union victory as a necessity. Thus in 1862 he left the Ohio state house to join the Union Army and he was appointed lieutenant colonel of the 76th Ohio Infantry, which served in the Western Theater. He fought at the battles of Shiloh and Vicksburg, and was breveted brigadier general, Woods commanded his regiment under William T. Sherman during the Atlanta Campaign and the Shermans March to the Sea. During the Carolinas Campaign he fought with distinction at the Battle of Bentonville and he was appointed a brevet major general and was promoted to full Brigadier General in early 1865. He was a Chancellor, Middle Chancery Division of Alabama, Montgomery, Woods was a United States Circuit Judge for the United States Circuit Court for the Fifth Circuit. Woods was nominated by President Ulysses S. Grant on December 8,1869 and he was confirmed by the United States Senate on December 22,1869, and received commission the same day. His service was terminated on December 23,1880, due to elevation to the United States Supreme Court, the Slaughter-House Cases, which tested the issue of the reach and breadth of the 14th Amendment, were the most important cases he adjudicated on in the lower courts. At this point, Woods was willing to read the provisions of the 14th Amendment broadly. Woods was nominated to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States by President Rutherford B. Hayes on December 15,1880, to a seat vacated by William Strong. He was confirmed by the United States Senate, by a vote of 39 to 8, on December 21,1880, Woods was not a major contributor to the Court and spent only six years on the bench. He served on the court until his death in Washington, D. C. on May 14,1887, list of American Civil War generals Slaughter-House Cases William Burnham Woods at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center
9.
Stanley Matthews (lawyer)
–
Thomas Stanley Matthews, known as Stanley Matthews, was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from May 1881 to his death in 1889. Matthews was the Courts 46th justice, before his appointment to the Court by President James A. Garfield, Matthews served as a senator from his home state of Ohio. Matthews was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and studied at Kenyon College and he practiced law in Cincinnati before moving to Maury County, Tennessee, where he practiced from 1840 to 1845. After editing the Cincinnati Herald for two years from 1846 to 1848, Matthews was selected to serve as the clerk of the Ohio House of Representatives and he was then elected to the Ohio State Senate for the 1st district, where he served from 1856 to 1858. He was then appointed as the U. S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, in 1861, Matthews resigned as United States Attorney to serve as a lieutenant colonel with the 23rd Ohio Infantry regiment of the Union Army during the American Civil War. His superior officer was Rutherford B, Hayes, William McKinley also served in the regiment. With the 23rd Ohio Regiment, Matthews fought at the battle of Carnifex Ferry, on October 26,1861 he was appointed colonel of the 51st Ohio Infantry Regiment. and on April 11,1862 he was nominated as brigadier general of U. S. Volunteers. However, the nomination was tabled and never confirmed, nevertheless, Colonel Matthews commanded a brigade in the Army of the Ohio and later the Army of the Cumberland. Colonel Matthews resigned from the Union Army on April 11,1863, Matthews ran for the United States House of Representatives in 1876, but was defeated. A year later, he won an election to the Senate to fill a vacancy created by the resignation of John Sherman. On January 26,1881, President Rutherford B. Hayes nominated Matthews for a position as an Associate Justice on the U. S. Supreme Court. Matthews was a nominee, and as the nomination came near the end of Hayess term. He served on the Court until his death in 1889 and his funeral was attended by many people. His remains are interred at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati, Ohio Also interred there is John McLean, a collection of Justice Matthewss correspondence and other papers are located at the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center library in Fremont, Ohio and open for research. Additional papers and collections are at, Cincinnati Historical Society, Cincinnati, Ohio, Library of Congress, Manuscript and Prints & Photographs Divisions, Washington, among these was Yick Wo v. Hopkins. In 1880, the officials of city of San Francisco. They passed an ordinance that persons could not operate a laundry in a building without a permit from the Board of Supervisors. The ordinance conferred upon the Board of Supervisors the discretion to grant or withhold the permits, at the time, about 95% of the citys 320 laundries were operated in wooden buildings
10.
Horace Gray
–
Horace Gray was an American jurist who ultimately served on the United States Supreme Court. He was active in service and a great philanthropist to the City of Boston. Gray was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to the prominent Boston Brahmin merchant family of William Gray. He enrolled at Harvard College at the age of 13, graduated four years later and he studied law at Harvard, although he did not receive a degree. Gray entered the bar in 1851, Grays home later became the site of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist Horace Grays half-brother, John Chipman Gray went on to become a lawyer and long-time professor at Harvard Law School. This reputation made him a choice when a vacancy opened up on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in 1864. At age 36, Gray was youngest appointee in that courts history, while serving as chief justice, Gray hired Louis D. Brandeis as a clerk, becoming the first justice of that court to hire a clerk. In 1881, President Chester A. Arthur nominated Gray to a vacancy on the Supreme Court of the United States, he was confirmed the following day, replacing Nathan Clifford. In 1889, Gray married Jane Matthews, who was the daughter of his colleague on the court. As he had been in Massachusetts, Gray was the first Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court to hire a law clerk and he used his own funds to pay the clerks salary, as no government money was appropriated for this purpose at the time. Gray served on the US Supreme Court for over 20 years, resigning in July,1902 and he was succeeded by a fellow Massachusetts native, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. who, like Gray, previously served on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. His opinions, both concurring and dissenting, were very long and weighted with legal history. Gray is well known for his decision in Pollock v. Farmers Loan & Trust Co, after the first hearing, Gray wrote that he sided with the defendant, arguing that the tax was indeed constitutional. He was in the minority, however, after the second hearing, Gray changed his stance, joining with the majority in favor of the plaintiff. He chose not to write a dissenting or concurring opinion, in either hearing, probably the most famous of Justice Grays opinions is Mut. This holding gained wide acceptance and is now codfied in Rule 803 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, Horace Gray was also the author of the 1898 case United States v.169 U. S.649,705. Horace Gray sided with the majority in the infamous case Plessy v. Ferguson that upheld racial segregation, samuel Williston who worked as Justice Grays private secretary Data drawn in part from the Supreme Court Historical Society and Oyez. Legal Historian on the United States Supreme Court, Justice Horace Gray, Jr. koslosky, Daniel Ryan, Ghosts of Horace Gray, Customary International Law as Expectation in Human Rights Litigation 97 Kentucky Law Journal 615
