Earl Warren info on the WWW:

From FindLaw Constitutional Law Center :

Position:
Chief Justice

Family:
Earl Warren was born on March 19, 1891 to Scandinavian parents, Methias Warren and Chrystal Hernlud in Los Angeles, California. He was a brought up as a Protestant. Warren married Nina P. Meyers in 1925. He had six children with Meyers. He died on July 9, 1974 in Washington D.C., at the age of eighty-three.

Education:
He completed his undergraduate education at the University of California -Berkeley in 1912. He graduated from the University of California -Berkeley law school in 1914.

Law Practice:
Warren was admitted to the California bar in 1914. He practiced in law offices in San Francisco and Oakland from 1914-1917.

Government Service:
Warren was an army Lieutenant from 1917-1918. In 1919, Warren became Deputy City Attorney of Oakland, beginning a life in public service. In 1920, he became Deputy Assistant District Attorney of Alameda County. In 1925, he was appointed District Attorney of Alameda County, to fill an unexpired term, and was elected and re-elected to the office in his own right in 1926, 1930, and 1934. In 1938, he was elected Attorney General of California. In 1942, Warren was elected Governor of California, and he was twice re-elected. In 1948, he was the Republican nominee for Vice President of the United States. In 1952, he sought the Republican party's nomination for President. Warren served as Chairman of the Judicial Conference of the United States from 1953 to 1969 and as Chairman of the Federal Judicial Center from 1968 to 1969. He also chaired the commission of inquiry into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Judicial Offices:
Earl Warren was an immensely popular Republican governor when President Dwight Eisenhower appointed him to the Supreme Court. On September 30, 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Warren Chief Justice of the United States under a recess appointment. The Senate confirmed the appointment on March 1, 1954. He was commissioned on October 2, 1953 and he was sworn in on October 5, 1953. Eisenhower later regretted his choice. He had hoped to appoint a moderate conservative but Warren proved to be a liberal. Warren joined the Court in the midst of one of its most important issues: racial segregation in public schools. The new Chief proved an effective leader by bringing the Court from division to unanimity on the issue of racial equality. In November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson called on a reluctant Warren to serve as a member of the special committee to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He retired from the office on June 23, 1969, after fifteen years of service

Literature:
Hughes and the Court (1962); The Bill of Rights and the Military (1962); All Men Are Created Equal (1970); A Republic, if You Can Keep it (1972); and Memoirs (1977)

Legacy:
Warren, though appointed by Republican President Eisenhower, took a decidedly liberal course in a socially stormy era. His legacy includes decisions forbidding school segregation, fairer mapping of voting districts and safeguarding rights of defendants in criminal trials

[This site has other good Warren links and law info.]

From the Arlington National Cemetery Website :

Earl Warren was an immensely popular Republican governor when President Dwight Eisenhower appointed him to the Supreme Court. Ike later regretted his choice; he had hoped to appoint a moderate conservative; Warren proved to be an unabashed liberal.

Warren joined the Court in the midst of one of its most important issues: racial segregation in public schools. The new Chief proved an effective leader (unlike his predecessor) by bringing the Brethren from division to unanimity on the issue of racial equality. 

At the end of his service, Warren concluded that his greatest contribution to government was his opinion in the reapportionment cases. However, his contribution to racial equality still stands as a testament to his role as a leader extraordinaire.

In November 1963, President Lyndon B. Johnson called on a reluctant Warren to serve as a member of the special committee to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. When first approached by the Attorney General Robert Kennedy (brother to the slain president), Warren declined. He was concerned that such service would tarnish  the Court's legitimacy. But in this secretly recorded telephone call, Johnson explained to Senator Richard Russell how he persuaded Warren to serve.

In a public address following his retirement for the Court, Warren articulated his strong commitment to the principle of equality and admonished Americans that they face continued strife and upheaval by failing to heed the rightful demands for equality.

Retired in Washington, D.C.; wrote memoirs. Died  in Washington, D.C. Interment: Arlington National Cemetery.

[Site has pictures of Warren’s gravestone.]

From The University of California San Diego, Earl Warren College Website :

Earl Warren (1891-1974)

Earl Warren was born in Los Angeles on March 19, 1891. Throughout most of his childhood, he and his family lived in Bakersfield, where his father was a railroad employee. His determination to be a lawyer dates to before his high school days, when he listened to criminal cases at the Kern County courthouse. Warren attended the University of California at Berkeley, where he majored in political science for three years before entering the UCB's school of jurisprudence. He received his B.L. degree in 1912 and his J.D. degree in 1914. On May 14, 1915, he was admitted to the California bar.

After graduation Warren worked in law offices in San Francisco and Oakland, the only time in his career when he was engaged in private practice. From 1920 until his retirement from the Supreme Court in 1969, he served without interruption in public office. In 1925 he was appointed Alameda County district attorney when the incumbent resigned. He won election to the post in his own right in 1926, 1930, and 1934.

During his fourteen years as district attorney, Warren developed a reputation as a crime fighter. As a prosecutor Warren was sometimes accused of high-handedness in his methods, but in thirteen years and in thousands of cases ranging from murder to window-breaking, he never had a conviction reversed by a higher court. Warren was a member of the Board of Regents of the University of California. Although a Republican, Warren had broad bipartisan support because of his centrist to liberal views. He is the only person to have been elected to the governorship of California for three successive terms (in 1942, 1946, and 1950). In 1946 he was the only governor in our history to win an election unopposed, for he won both the Democratic and the Republican primaries.

In 1948 Warren was the Republican Party's nominee for vice-president of the United States on a ticket headed by the popular Thomas A. Dewey. (That famous election was the only one Warren ever lost.) Interestingly, one of Warren's unsuccessful campaigns as governor was for universal health care.

In 1953 President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren the fourteenth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Among the Warren Court's most important decisions was the ruling that made racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. Another was the "one-man one-vote" ruling that caused a major shift in legislative power from rural areas to cities.

Besides his work on the court, Warren headed the commission that investigated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Earl Warren retired in 1969 and died on July 9, 1974, in Washington, D.C.

Earl Warren College, the fourth of UCSD's undergraduate colleges, was founded in 1974, and named after the former Chief Justice in a ceremony attended by Thurgood Marshall, a member of the Warren Court, and a jurist destined eventually to bequeath his name to another UCSD college. Warren College, memorializes the popular governor and great jurist with a curriculum that encourages both depth and breadth and that includes a course in ethics for every student, seeking to provide the education, formal and informal, needed for future political and judicial leaders, and future private citizens and professionals.

From Electric Library’s Encyclopedia.com website :

Warren, Earl, 1891-1974, American public official and 14th Chief Justice of the United States (1953-69), b. Los Angeles. He graduated from the Univ. of California Law School in 1912. Admitted (1914) to the bar, he practiced in Oakland, Calif., and held several local offices. He served (1939-43) as state attorney general and was governor of California from 1943 to 1953. In 1948 he was the unsuccessful candidate for Vice President on the Republican ticket headed by Thomas E. Dewey. In Oct., 1953, President Eisenhower appointed him Chief Justice to succeed Fred M. Vinson. One of the most dynamic of Chief Justices, Warren led the court toward a number of landmark decisions in the fields of civil rights and individual liberties. Among these were the unanimous 1954 decision, written by Warren, ending segregation in the nation's schools (see Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas); the one man, one vote rulings, which opened the way for legislative and Congressional reapportionment; and decisions in criminal cases guaranteeing the right to counsel and protecting the accused from police abuses. In 1963-64, Warren headed the commission that investigated the assassination of President Kennedy (see Warren Commission). He retired from the bench in 1969. His public papers were edited by H. M. Christman (1959).

[This is a pay site with a free trial period.]

From the Supreme Court Antitrust Debates (SCADs) website : [a collection of excerpts from 72 of the Supreme Court's antitrust opinions from 1895 through 1993.]

Governor of California, appointed Chief Justice by Dwight Eisenhower (R) in 1953, served until 1969. Replaced Fred M. Vinson, succeeded by Warren E. Burger.

"Warren did not immediately manifest the libertarian activism that would eventually result in all-out assaults on the Court, accompanied by the distribution of 'Impeach Earl Warren' bumper stickers and Warren Impeachment Kits. By mid-1956 it had become crystal clear that, as Chief Justice of the United States, Earl Warren was in the process of providing leadership for a libertarian activist approach to public law and personal rights that went far beyond the Eisenhower brand of progressive Republicanism. The Chief Justice, usually with Justices Black and Douglas (and later Brennan) by his side, wrought a constitutional revolution in the application of the Bill of Rights to the states; in the generous interpretation of specific provisions of criminal-justice safeguards for the individual; in the application and interpretation of the Civil War amendments; in the liberalization of the right to foreign travel, to vote, the right to run for office, and the right to fair representation, to 'one person, one vote'; to an elevated commitment to freedom of expression; and in many other sectors of the freedom of the individual. He was the Chief Justice par excellence - second in institutional-leadership greatness only to John Marshall himself. Like Marshall he understood and utilized the tools of pervasive and persuasive power leadership available to him; he knew how to bring men together, how to set a tone, and how to fashion a mood. He was a wise man and a warm, kind human being. He was his Court, the Court." -- Henry J. Abraham

From Infoplease.com:

Warren, Earl

Warren, Earl, 1891–1974, American public official and 14th Chief Justice of the United States (1953–69), b. Los Angeles. He graduated from the Univ. of California Law School in 1912. Admitted (1914) to the bar, he practiced in Oakland, Calif., and held several local offices. He served (1939–43) as state attorney general and was governor of California from 1943 to 1953. In 1948 he was the unsuccessful candidate for Vice President on the Republican ticket headed by Thomas E. Dewey. In Oct., 1953, President Eisenhower appointed him Chief Justice to succeed Fred M. Vinson. One of the most dynamic of Chief Justices, Warren led the court toward a number of landmark decisions in the fields of civil rights and individual liberties. Among these were the unanimous 1954 decision, written by Warren, ending segregation in the nation's schools (see Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas); the one man, one vote rulings, which opened the way for legislative and Congressional reapportionment; and decisions in criminal cases guaranteeing the right to counsel and protecting the accused from police abuses. In 1963–64, Warren headed the commission that investigated the assassination of President Kennedy (see Warren Commission). He retired from the bench in 1969. His public papers were edited by H. M. Christman (1959).

See biographies by J. D. Weaver (1967) and G. E. White (1982); studies by A. Cox (1968), R. H. Sayler et al. (1969), and B. Schwartz (1983); E. Cray, Chief Justice (1997).

From Landmark Cases of the Supreme Court

Brown v. Board of Education (1954)

Landmark Case Biography
Earl Warren (1891 - 1974)

Earl Warren was Chief Justice 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. At the time Bakersfield was a rough and tumble frontier town where Warren recalled seeing "crime and vice of all kinds countenanced by a corrupt government" (p. 31 of his Memoirs). 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 Berkely and its law school and served a brief stint in the army during World War I. He then joined the Alameda County district attorney's office for eighteen years. During that time he proved to be a tough prosecutor, but 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. During this time, Warren is remembered primarily 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, 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 "massaging the court" and securing consensus as is evidenced by the unanimous decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case, one of the first 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 in American life. The Warren Court took on the defense of individual rights as no court before it had ever done. 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 his reliance on social science and psychological research. Warren was not anti-government, 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 Supreme Court as a protector of civil rights and civil liberties.


Click here to read letters written to Chief Justice Warren by other justices remarking on his Brown v. Board of Education decision. What do they 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?

From bookpage.com website advertising Chief Justice A Biography of Earl Warren By Ed Cray:

Review by Roger Bishop

Is it fair?

That question was at the heart of Earl Warren's approach to the law during his 15 years as Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court. His life experience, which included extensive public service as a district attorney and state attorney general and governor of California, led him to that question. He understood that law, by its nature, was conservative, steeped in historical precedent. But he also knew that law had to meet the changing needs of a dynamic society. It was important, he noted, that every Supreme Court decision be "evaluated in terms of practical application. Everything we do must include the human equation, for what we do with our legal system will determine what American life will be . . ."

The Warren Court was responsible for expanding our understanding of individual and civil rights. At the time, some of those decisions were very controversial and remain so for certain citizens. Yet, remarkably, succeeding Courts, led by chief justices whose judicial philosophies differ from Warren's, have not rescinded or reversed the central thrust of the Warren Court's legacy. All of our lives have been affected directly or indirectly by those rulings from 1954 through 1969.

Who was Earl Warren? How was he able to lead a previously divided Court of men of strong convictions to reach sometimes unanimous decisions in such landmark cases as Brown v. Board of Education, which declared segregation in education illegal, the one person-one vote decision, and the Miranda rights verdict? In his splendid "Chief Justice," Ed Cray, Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Southern California, gives us a clear picture of both the public and private life of this man who came to represent the best of America for many around the world.

Cray helps us appreciate Warren's roots in California in the first part of the century. The son of immigrants, his father from Norway, his mother from Sweden, Earl was taught the value of hard work and the importance of education. Politically, Warren was a Republican, but he had grown up with the Progressive tradition of Hiram Johnson, who served as both governor and senator. It was also a state where voters were accustomed to cross-filing, which allowed them to vote in primaries of parties other than their own. He believed that government had an important role to play, but he was known for nonpartisanship and the need for coalition politics to achieve desired goals.

Skills practiced in that political environment became a crucial element in his leadership of the court. As Cray writes, "His leadership stemmed from personal vision coupled with political acumen." During his ten years as governor he was admired as an administrator. "He was personable, gregarious, and widely respected in both political and law enforcement circles," Cray writes. Although not a legal scholar and without judicial experience, he was hardworking, and his ability to reach out to others counted for a lot. His relations with the other justices were very good, with the exception of Felix Frankfurter. The latter once said, "The Supreme Court exists to establish rules of law, not to provide justice." That approach and Frankfurter's rather condescending approach to Warren led to some difficult exchanges.

Cray discusses Warren's role in the evacuation and internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. Based on the facts presented to him at the time, Warren thought it appropriate although he did have serious reservations. In his posthumously published memoirs he apologized.

Over half of the text deals with the Warren Court. Cray's discussion of legal matters, sometimes complex, is presented in a reader-friendly way. The author is also careful to tell not only about Court decisions and how they came about, but to relate the public reaction to them.

Among other highlights of this fair and absorbing biography: the work of the Warren Commission investigating the assassination of John F. Kennedy, an assignment the Chief Justice did not want; Warren's presidential ambitions; his ongoing political differences with Richard Nixon; and his cool relationship with President Eisenhower, who had appointed him.

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