Earl Warren

Earl Warren (born March 19, 1891, Los Angeles, California, U.S.—died July 9, 1974, Washington, D.C.) was an American jurist, the 14th chief justice (1953–69) of the United States who presided over the Supreme Court during a period of sweeping changes in U.S. constitutional law, especially in the areas of race relations, criminal procedure, and legislative apportionment.

Early life

Warren was the son of Erik Methias Warren, a Norwegian immigrant who worked as a railroad repairman, and Christine Hernlund Warren, who emigrated with her parents from Sweden when she was a child. His father was blacklisted for a time following the Pullman Strike (1894), and Earl also worked for the railroad during his youth; his experience soured his view toward the railway, and in his memoirs he noted that his progressive political and legal attitudes resulted from his exposure to the exploitative and corrupt conduct of the railroad companies.

Warren attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he received bachelor’s (1912) and law (1914) degrees. His political appetite was whetted by his work on the successful campaign of Progressive Party gubernatorial candidate Hiram Johnson. After graduation he was admitted to the bar and spent three years in private practice. In 1917 he enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving stateside during World War I and rising to the rank of first lieutenant before his discharge in 1918. Thereafter he briefly worked with the California State Assembly before becoming deputy city attorney for Oakland; in 1920 he took up the post of deputy district attorney for Alameda county. In 1925–26 he served out the remaining year of the district attorney’s term of office, and in 1926 he won a full term as Alameda county district attorney.

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Political career

As district attorney until 1939, Warren distinguished himself for both his honesty and hard work and for fighting corruption (e.g., he successfully prosecuted the county sheriff and several of his deputies). He also earned support within the Republican Party for prosecuting radicals under the state syndicalism laws during the 1920s and for securing the convictions of labor-union leftists in the 1930s. Enjoying an excellent reputation throughout the state and country, Warren was elected state attorney general in 1938. He was easily elected governor in 1942 and twice won reelection (1946, 1950), becoming the first California governor to win three successive terms (in 1946 he won both the Democratic and Republican party primaries for governor). As governor, he supported the controversial policy of interning Japanese Americans during World War II and progressive policies on issues such as education, health care, and prison reform.

He was nominated as the Republican candidate for vice president of the United States in 1948, losing on a ticket with Thomas Dewey (it was his only defeat in an election). Despite the 1948 loss, his national reputation continued to grow, and he gained a strong following as a potential presidential candidate in 1952. As the campaign drew near, divisions within the Republican Party began to emerge. His moderate position in the campaign against communism (led in California by fellow Republican Richard M. Nixon)—e.g., he opposed loyalty oaths for professors at the University of California—and his less-than-committed primary campaign left Warren a distant third, behind Robert A. Taft and General Dwight D. Eisenhower, by the time of the Republican National Convention. Nevertheless, Warren hoped to secure the Republican nomination as a compromise candidate. However, a pair of strategic moves—one by Nixon to secretly campaign for Eisenhower despite his pledge of support for Warren, and one by Warren to support the Fair Play Act that effectively assured delegate support for Eisenhower for president—ultimately sank his nomination, and he campaigned vigorously for Eisenhower in the general election. In gratitude for his loyalty, Eisenhower considered Warren for several cabinet offices and later promised Warren the first vacant seat on the court. In July 1953 Eisenhower offered Warren the post of solicitor general, but when Chief Justice Fred Vinson died suddenly on September 8, 1953, Eisenhower, honoring his commitment, appointed Warren interim chief justice; on March 1, 1954, Warren’s appointment was confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

Chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

In his first term on the bench, he spoke for a unanimous court in the leading school-desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), declaring unconstitutional the separation of public-school children according to race. Rejecting the “separate but equal” doctrine that had prevailed since Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Warren, speaking for the court, stated that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” and the court subsequently called for the desegregation of public schools with “all deliberate speed.” In Watkins v. United States (1957), Warren led the court in upholding the right of a witness to refuse to testify before a congressional committee, and, in other opinions concerning federal and state loyalty and security investigations, he likewise took a position discounting the fear of communist subversion that was prevalent in the United States during the 1950s.

In Reynolds v. Sims (1964), using the Supreme Court’s precedent set in Baker v. Carr (1962), Warren held that representation in state legislatures must be apportioned equally on the basis of population rather than geographical areas, remarking that “legislators represent people, not acres or trees.” In Miranda v. Arizona (1966)—a landmark decision of the Warren court’s rulings on criminal justice—he ruled that the police, before questioning criminal suspects, must inform them of their rights to remain silent and to have counsel present (appointed for them if they are indigent) and that a confession obtained in defiance of these requirements is inadmissible in court.

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After the assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963, Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Warren to chair a commission established to investigate the killing as well as the murder of the presumed assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. The report of the Warren Commission was submitted in September 1964 and was published later that year. Partly because of his bureaucratic naiveté and partly because of his interest in conducting a quick investigation that would allow the country—and the Kennedy family—to move beyond the tragedy, the report proved remarkably uncritical in accepting government information (particularly information provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency). For example, Warren rushed the commission’s staff, refused to interview Kennedy’s widow, and kept the autopsy photos under seal. Ultimately, the report did not silence those who presumed there had been a wide conspiracy to assassinate the president.

Convinced that Nixon (whom by this time Warren detested) would win the presidency in 1968 and wanting Johnson to name his replacement, Warren notified Johnson that he would resign at the president’s pleasure. Johnson subsequently attempted to elevate Justice Abe Fortas as Warren’s successor (and to name Homer Thornberry to take Fortas’s seat as associate justice), but, in the face of a conservative filibuster, Fortas’s nomination was withdrawn; Nixon subsequently appointed Warren Burger chief justice, and Warren officially retired on June 23, 1969.

Publications and legacy

In retirement he lectured and wrote The Memoirs of Chief Justice Earl Warren, which was published posthumously in 1977. He was also the author of A Republic, If You Can Keep It (1972). In 1974 Warren suffered three heart attacks, and on the day of his death he prodded the Supreme Court to order the release to the U.S. Congress of the secret Watergate tapes (which would hasten Nixon’s resignation from the presidency).

Despite the criticisms leveled at the report of the Warren Commission, Warren’s reputation as a leader—ideologically, politically, and jurisprudentially—of the court is firmly established, and he stands out as one of the most influential chief justices in U.S. history. A common denominator in Warren’s decisions—and indeed the legacy of what has come to be known as the “Warren Court”—was a profound sensitivity to the impact of judicial decisions on society at large. Viewing the court as much more than an agency that merely interprets law, Warren used the court as a vessel for social change, especially in the field of civil liberties and civil rights. Commonly regarded as a liberal judicial activist, Warren interpreted the constitution in an open-ended manner, reading its provisions as potential solutions to contemporary social problems.