Charles Evans Whittaker
| Charles Whittaker | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States | |
|
In office March 22, 1957 – March 31, 1962[1] | |
| Nominated by | Dwight Eisenhower |
| Preceded by | Stanley Reed |
| Succeeded by | Byron White |
| Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit | |
|
In office June 5, 1956 – March 22, 1957 | |
| Nominated by | Dwight Eisenhower |
| Preceded by | John Collet |
| Succeeded by | Marion Matthes |
| Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri | |
|
In office July 8, 1954 – June 5, 1956 | |
| Nominated by | Dwight Eisenhower |
| Preceded by | Albert Reeves |
| Succeeded by | Randle Smith |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
February 22, 1901 Troy, Kansas, U.S. |
| Died |
November 26, 1973 (aged 72) Kansas City, Missouri, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Alma mater | University of Missouri, Kansas City |
Charles Evans Whittaker (February 22, 1901 – November 26, 1973) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1957 to 1962.
Early years and career
Whittaker was born on a farm near Troy, Kansas to Charles Edward Whittaker, a farmer, and Ida Eve Miller, a schoolteacher from Hagerstown, Maryland. He attended the nearby one-room Brush Creek School, and then the Troy High School until he dropped out in the ninth grade after his mother died on his sixteenth birthday. He spent the next three years working on a family farm, and also hunting and trapping. Whittaker developed an interest in law by reading newspaper articles about criminal trials. In the summer of 1920, he applied to the part-time evening program at the Kansas City School of Law (currently the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law) and gained admission with the condition that he would finish his high school education after personally pleading with Oliver Dean, a president of the law school. Immediately, he enrolled at Manual High School in Kansas City. He spent the next four years working during the day to support himself, and in the evenings was taking high school courses as well as classes at the K. C. School of Law. While Whittaker was a student at the school, future president Harry S. Truman was a classmate. Whittaker was graduated in the class of 1924 having being admitted to the Missouri bar during his senior year.[2]
Whittaker joined the law firm of Watson, Ess, Marshall & Enggas in Kansas City, Missouri, where he previously toiled full-time as an office boy, and built up a practice in corporate law with the Union Pacific Railroad, Montgomery Ward, and the City National Bank and Trust Company among his clients. He developed close ties to the Republican party. He was appointed as a federal judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri on July 8, 1954. He was nominated to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on June 5, 1956.[2]
Supreme Court
Whittaker developed a good reputation as a judge. Less than a year after being appointed to the court of appeals, he was nominated to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, taking the oath on March 25, 1957. Whittaker thus became the first person to serve as a judge of a federal district court, a federal court of appeals, and the US Supreme Court. He was one of the four Republicans appointed to the court by Eisenhower (along with Earl Warren, John M. Harlan II, and Potter Stewart). Eisenhower appointed one Democrat, William J. Brennan, to the Court.[3]
Justice Samuel Blatchford also served at all three levels of the federal judiciary, but the court system was configured slightly differently at that time. Justice Sonia Sotomayor is the most recent Justice to have served in all three levels of the federal judiciary.
On the closely divided Supreme Court, Whittaker was a swing vote. According to Professor Howard Ball, 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."[4]
Whittaker failed to develop a consistent judicial philosophy and reportedly felt himself not as qualified as some of the other members of the court. After agonizing deeply for months over his vote in Baker v. Carr, a landmark reapportionment case, Whittaker suffered a nervous breakdown in the spring of 1962. At the behest of Chief Justice Earl Warren, Whittaker recused himself from the case and retired from the Court effective March 31, 1962, citing exhaustion from the heavy workload and stress.[3]
Final years
Effective September 30, 1965, Whittaker resigned his position as a retired Justice in order to become chief counsel to General Motors. He also became a resolute critic of the Warren Court as well as the Civil Rights Movement, characterizing the civil disobedience of the type practiced by Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers as lawless. He wrote a piece for the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin that advised protesters to use courts instead of taking to the streets.[5] Like many conservatives at the time, he criticized the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as unconstitutional.[6]
Whittaker died in 1973 at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City of a ruptured abdominal aneurysm.[7][8]
Family
In 1928, Whittaker married Winifred R. Pugh, they had three sons, Dr. Charles Keith Whittaker, a neurosurgeon; Kent E. Whittaker, an attorney; and Gary T. Whittaker, a stockbroker.
Legacy and honors
The federal courthouse in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, which houses the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, is named in memory of Whittaker.
See also
References
- ↑ "Federal Judicial Center: Charles Whittaker". December 12, 2009. Retrieved December 12, 2009.
- 1 2 Smith, Craig A. Failing Justice: Charles Evans Whittaker on the Supreme Court. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Company, 2005.
- 1 2 "Whittaker is leaving U.S. Supreme Court", Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 30 March 1962
- ↑ Ball, Howard. Hugo L. Black: Cold Steel Warrior, Oxford University Press. 2006. ISBN 0-19-507814-4. Page 126.
- ↑ Urofsky, Melvin I. The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary. New York: Garland Pub, 1994.
- ↑ The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
- ↑ "Charles Whittaker dies; On top court", Youngstown Vindicator, 27 November 1973
- ↑ "Former Justice Whittaker of Supreme Court is dead," The New York Times, November 27, 1973.
Further reading
- Abraham, Henry J., Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. 3d. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). ISBN 0-19-506557-3.
- Cushman, Clare, The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies,1789–1995 (2nd ed.) (Supreme Court Historical Society), (Congressional Quarterly Books, 2001) ISBN 1-56802-126-7; ISBN 978-1-56802-126-3.
- Frank, John P., The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions (Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, editors) (Chelsea House Publishers: 1995) ISBN 0-7910-1377-4, ISBN 978-0-7910-1377-9.
- Martin, Fenton S. and Goehlert, Robert U., The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography, (Congressional Quarterly Books, 1990). ISBN 0-87187-554-3.
- Smith, Craig Alan. Failing Justice: Charles Evans Whittaker On The Supreme Court. McFarland & Company, 2005.
- Urofsky, Melvin I., The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary (New York: Garland Publishing 1994). 590 pp. ISBN 0-8153-1176-1; ISBN 978-0-8153-1176-8.
External links
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Wikisource has original works written by or about: Charles Evans Whittaker |
- Papers of Richard Lawrence Miller, 1998-2001 (materials collected while working on a biography of Supreme Court Justice Charles E. Whittaker: Whittaker: Struggles of a Supreme Court Justice. Greenwood Publishers, 2001.), Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Albert Reeves |
Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri 1954–1956 |
Succeeded by Randle Smith |
| Preceded by John Collet |
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit 1956–1957 |
Succeeded by Marion Matthes |
| Preceded by Stanley Reed |
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 1957–1962 |
Succeeded by Byron White |
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