 Landmark
Case Biography
Earl Warren (1891 - 1974)
Earl Warren was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the
United States during one of the most turbulent times in our
nation's history. During his tenure, the Court dealt with
controversial cases on civil rights and civil liberties and
the very nature of the political system.
Warren was born in Los Angeles, but grew up in Bakersfield,
California where his father worked as a railroad car repairman.
Bakersfield was a rough and tumble frontier town where Warren
recalled seeing "crime and vice of all kinds countenanced
by a corrupt government." He worked on the railroad himself
in the summer, which left him with knowledge about working
people and their problems, as well as with the anti-Asian
racism then rampant on the West Coast.
Warren
attended the University of California at Berkeley and its
law school. After serving a brief stint in the army during
World War I, he worked for the Alameda County district attorney's
office for eighteen years. During that time he proved to
be a tough prosecutor, but he was also sensitive to the
rights of the accused and personally fought to secure a
public defender for people who could not afford one. A 1931
survey concluded that Earl Warren was the best district
attorney in the United States.
From
1938 to 1942, Earl Warren was attorney general of California
and was then elected governor. Warren is remembered mostly
for his role in demanding the evacuation of Japanese from
the West Coast. Though the action seemed inconsistent with
his future decisions, Warren maintained during his lifetime
that it seemed like the right action at the time. In his
memoirs, however, he acknowledged error.
Warren
served three terms as governor of California and played a
key role in Dwight Eisenhower's nomination for the presidency
in 1952. Eisenhower rewarded Warren with the Chief Justice
position in 1953. Warren took over a court that was deeply
divided between those justices who advocated a more active
role for the court and those who supported judicial restraint.
He proved skillful at "massing the court" and securing
consensus as is evidenced by the unanimous decision in the
Brown v. Board of Education case, one of the first cases that
he had to deal with as Chief Justice.
The
Brown case was the first in a long string of judgments that
marked a more active role for the Supreme Court of the United
States in American life. The Warren Court took on the defense
of individual rights as no court before it. Warren considered
this a proper role for the courts; he never saw the role
of the judiciary as passive, or somehow inferior to the
other two branches of government.
Warren's
opinion in Brown has been criticized for its lack
of constitutional analysis. In Brown the key finding
does not appeal to precedent or to the history of the Fourteenth
Amendment. Rather there is an emphasis on common sense,
justice, and fairness that can be seen in Warren's reliance
on social science and psychological research. Warren was
not antigovernment, but he believed that the Constitution
prohibited the government from acting unfairly against the
individual. In taking this position, he carved out a powerful
position for the Court as a protector of civil rights and
civil liberties.
Read
letters written to Chief Justice Warren by other justices
remarking on his Brown v. Board of Education
decision. What do the letters reveal about Justice Warren,
his decision in the Brown case, and his relationship
with the other justices? Why was a unanimous decision in
the Brown case so important?
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