Charles Evans Whittaker

Charles Evans Whittaker

Charles Evans Whittaker (* 22. February 1901 in Troy , Kansas ; † 26. November , 1973 in Kansas City , Missouri ) was 1957-1962 Assistant Judge (Associate Justice) at the Supreme Court of the United States .

Whittaker was born on a farm in Doniphan County , Kansas, and dropped out of school in ninth grade. He spent the next two years hunting, catching animals and farming. Newspaper reports about court cases, which he read regularly, aroused his interest in law. He applied to the Kansas City School of Law , now the law school of the University of Missouri – Kansas City , but was only admitted to study on condition that he would first complete a high school diploma. Before he enrolled, he worked for two years and taught himself the necessary subject matter with the help of a private tutor. He began his studies in 1922, Harry S. Truman was one of his fellow students. In 1924 he obtained a law degree.

Whittaker joined a law firm in Kansas City, Missouri , specializing in corporate law . He had close ties with the Republican Party , which resulted in his first appointment as a judge at the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri on July 8, 1954. On June 5, 1956, he was nominated for the eighth district of the United States Court of Appeals , a federal court that has appeals for the two federal district courts in the states of Arkansas , Iowa , Missouri and for the one federal judicial district in the states of Minnesota , Nebraska , North and South Dakota forms. Whittaker earned it a reputation as a judge and even less than one year, he was President Dwight D. Eisenhower to succeed Stanley Forman Reed to the office of Deputy Judge ( Associate Justice ) of the Supreme Court of the United States ( Supreme Court of the United States ) suggested. After confirmation by the US Senate , he took his oath of office on March 25, 1957 ; his successor at the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was Marion Charles Matthes . This made Whittaker the first to serve at all three levels of the American federal judiciary in a row, first in a United States District Court , then in a Federal Court of Appeals, and finally in the United States Supreme Court. While Judge Samuel Blatchford served on all three levels of federal courts, the judicial system was organized differently in his day.

In the decisions of the Supreme Court, often passed by a narrow majority, Whittaker's vote was not set in any particular direction, as Professor Howard Ball once said. His vote was often in favor of those of the contending parties who had the last, but not necessarily the best, argument. ( Whittaker was an "extremely weak, vacillating" justice who was "courted by the two cliques on the Court because his vote was generally up in the air and typically went to the group that made the last, but not necessarily the best, argument. " )

Whittaker did not develop a consistently consistent legal philosophy . According to some statements, he also felt less qualified than other members of the judges panel. After being torn for several months in the Baker v Carr case , which involved the cutting of electoral districts, he suffered a nervous breakdown in the spring of 1962. At the request of Chief Justice Earl Warren , Whittaker resigned from office on March 31, 1962 due to overwork. Whittaker then asked Warren to use him temporarily as a judge in lower federal courts, but Warren consistently refused. Byron White was appointed to the Supreme Court of the Senate by Earl Warren to succeed him .

On September 30, 1965, he also resigned as a retired judge to become a consultant for General Motors . He never tire of criticizing the Warren-led Senate and civil rights movement . He called the civil disobedience of Martin Luther King and his followers illegal. Like many Conservatives, he rejected the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as unconstitutional.

Whittaker died of an abdominal aneurysm in 1973 at St. Luke's Hospital, Kansas City . He left behind his wife Winifred and three sons Charles Keith, Kent C. and Gary T.

The federal court building in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, which houses the federal court for the western judicial district of Missouri, was named in his honor.

swell

• "Former Justice Whittaker of Supreme Court is dead", The New York Times , November 27, 1973 (English) ( Header online )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ball, Howard. Hugo L. Black: Cold Steel Warrior. Oxford University Press. 2006. ISBN 0-19-507814-4 . Page 126.
2. ↑ The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (English)

Web links

• The Supreme Court Historical Society

predecessor	Office	successor
Stanley Forman Reed	United States Supreme Court Justice March 25, 1957 - March 31, 1962	Byron White