Rufus Wheeler Peckham (judge)

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Rufus Wheeler Peckham (1909)

Rufus Wheeler Peckham (* 8. November 1838 in Albany , New York ; † 24. October 1909 in Altamont , Albany County , New York) was an American lawyer , the last judge on the Supreme Court of the United States ( US Supreme Court was) .

Life

Study and promotion to judge

Peckham, a son of the Democratic member of the same name of the US House of Representatives for the 14th  congressional electoral district of New York and later judge at the New York Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals , attended the Albany Academy and then studied law .

After his license to practice in New York State in 1859, he worked as a lawyer before becoming a district attorney for Albany County in 1869 . After completion of this activity he resumed his legal practice in 1872 and was then from 1883 to 1886 like his father a judge at the New York Supreme Court and between 1886 and 1895 at the New York Court of Appeals.

US Supreme Court judge

After the death of Howell Edmunds Jackson on August 8, 1895, Peckham was appointed associate judge at the US Supreme Court on January 6, 1896 by US President Grover Cleveland and held this office until his death on October 4, 1909.

During his tenure on the US Supreme Court, Peckham participated in the following major decisions:

  • In the Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895) had the Supreme Court on the by the Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act introduced the Income Tax Act of 1894 ( Income Tax Act of 1894 to decide). The court ruled that the non-income taxes introduced by this law on interest, dividends, and rent are direct taxes and that the law violates the United States Constitution because the state must be levied in proportion to the population.
  • In the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Court had to decide whether an Act of Louisiana , the separate compartments for citizens of white and black color in trains prescribed, would run against the US Constitution. In a judgment written by Brown, it denied this with 7 to 1 judges' votes and thus declared the provision of separate facilities for whites and blacks to be permissible under certain conditions. Through this judgment, the principle of separate but equal was de facto established as the basis of racial segregation in the southern states . John Marshall Harlan held a minor opinion against this fundamental decision . The decision of Plessy v. Ferguson was not recognized until 1954 through the judgment in the Brown v. Board of Education repealed.
  • In the Lochner v. New York (1905) was about the constitutionality of a working time regulation for bakers in the state of New York to sixty weekly working hours. In a close 5 to 4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the New York regulation of working hours would represent an unjustified restriction of the right to freely conclude contracts and would therefore violate the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution . In this process, Peckham wrote the majority opinion. Three years later, the court ruled Muller v. Oregon (1908) that the provisions contained in the Oregon Labor Hours Act restricting women's working hours would not violate the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution because the restriction was justified by the strong state interest in protecting women's health.
  • In the North American Cold Storage Co. v. Chicago (1908) the Supreme Court ruled that the police force gave the state the right to confiscate and destroy food that is unfit for consumption and therefore dangerous to health or life. In exercising such a measure, the 14th Amendment of the Constitution does not require the person whose property is destroyed to be notified in advance of such a measure and given the opportunity to comment. Rather, after the destruction, the person concerned has a right to sue , which does not, however, include the ex parte conviction of the state official who ordered it. In this case, Peckham wrote the majority opinion of the court again, while David Josiah Brewer took a dissenting opinion.

Horace Harmon Lurton succeeded Peckham, who was buried in Albany Rural Cemetery after his death . Peckham's older brother Wheeler Hazard Peckham was a well-known attorney whose nomination by US President Grover Cleveland as judge in the US Supreme Court to succeed Samuel Blatchford was rejected by the US Senate on February 16, 1894 by 41 to 32 votes.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "No capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration in before directed to be taken." Article I, Section 9 of the United States Constitution
  2. ^ Melville W. Fuller : POLLOCK v. FARMERS 'LOAN & TRUST CO., 158 US 601 (1895). April 8, 1895, accessed December 30, 2007 .
personal data
SURNAME Peckham, Rufus Wheeler
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American lawyer
DATE OF BIRTH November 8, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Albany , New York
DATE OF DEATH October 24, 1909
Place of death Altamont , Albany County , New York