Podcasts about felix frankfurter

https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=158502 * As the Los Angeles Times editorialized [in 1942], “the theory that an alien invader has civil rights is absurd on its face.” * Before the United States entered the war, in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940), the justices voted 8 – 1 in the government's favor. The case was brought by a family belonging to the Jehovah's Witnesses, a Christian denomination whose beliefs proscribed saluting the flag. Felix Frankfurter's majority opinion exhibited little sympathy for them. “National unity is the basis of national security,” Frankfurter declared. “The flag is the symbol of our national unity, transcending all internal differences.” He concluded that if the government thought unity could best be achieved by a compulsory flag salute, the courts had no business saying otherwise. * Furman v. Georgia [invalidating the death penalty] would be the farthest the Court would go in reinventing criminal procedure. The backlash was immediate. The day after Furman was decided, legislators in five states announced they would introduce bills to bring back the death penalty. Within a few years, thirty – five states and the federal government had new statutes authorizing capital punishment. Popular support for the death penalty skyrocketed. Fifty percent of respondents favored capital punishment in a Gallup poll conducted a few months before Furman was decided. A few months after Furman , the figure had grown to 57%, and within a few years it reached 65%. In every part of the country, the death penalty became more popular than it had been in many years, as people who had not given much thought to capital punishment now decided that the Supreme Court was wrong to abolish it. * The right of privacy in matters of childbirth was a new constitutional right, but so were most of the constitutional rights the Court had recognized over the past two decades, such as the right to attend integrated schools, the right to advocate communism, the right to an attorney during questioning by the police, or the right to a vote that was worth as much as the votes of the people in the next county. When Roe v. Wade arrived at the Court, it looked like it would be just another in a long line of cases applying recently established rights in new contexts. Indeed, the district court in which the pseudonymous Jane Roe filed her suit had already anticipated this outcome. The district court relied on Griswold to rule that Roe was entitled to obtain an abortion because the Texas law prohibiting abortion infringed her constitutional right “to choose whether to have children.” In Roe 's companion case, Doe v. Bolton , another district court likewise invalidated parts of Georgia's abortion law on the ground that Griswold established “a right to privacy which apparently is also broad enough to include the decision to abort a pregnancy.” 62 To the extent Roe would involve any change in the law, the heavy lifting seemed to have already been done. Unlike contraception, however, abortion was still illegal in most states in most circumstances. And while some of these state laws were quite old, others were not. https://odysee.com/@LukeFordLive, https://rumble.com/lukeford, https://dlive.tv/lukefordlivestreams Superchat: https://entropystream.live/app/lukefordlive Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/lukeford/ Soundcloud MP3s: https://soundcloud.com/luke-ford-666431593 Code of Conduct: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=125692 http://lukeford.net Email me: lukeisback@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter.com/lukeford, Best videos: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=143746 Support the show | https://www.streamlabs.com/lukeford, https://patreon.com/lukeford, https://PayPal.Me/lukeisback Facebook: http://facebook.com/lukecford Book an online Alexander Technique lesson with Luke: https://alexander90210.com Feel free to clip my videos. It's nice when you link back to the original.

In this special episode we hear the Hon. Jed S. Rakoff – Senior Judge, United States District Court, Southern District of New York – deliver a speech to the Association entitled "The U.S. Supreme Court's History as a Regressive Institution." Judge Rakoff's speech is part of City Bar's Benjamin N. Cardozo Lecture Series, which is inspired by the legacy of Benjamin N. Cardozo "and his love for the law, passion for justice and sympathy for humanity." First presented in 1941, previous speakers in the series have included Robert H. Jackson, Felix Frankfurter, William O. Douglas, Earl Warren, William J. Brennan, Jr., Marian Wright Edelman, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, among many others. Judge Rakoff was introduced by Judge Raymond Lohier, of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, after a welcome from City Bar President Muhammad Faridi.

How did the Supreme Court move from its essential job of interpreting the Constitution into the realm of political activism? And why, until recently, has the Supreme Court been so dominated by the Left? This is the story of the transformation of the Supreme Court by three progressive icons: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Louis Brandeis, and Felix Frankfurter. Holmes Jr. blazed the left-wing trail with his radical new vision of an evolving, “living” Constitution. Brandeis and Frankfurter used their positions as Supreme Court justices to run a secret political activist network that influenced decision-making at the highest levels of both Congress and the White House.   Sponsors Jase Wouldn't it be nice if you lived in a country where you didn't have to constantly worry that your government is lying to you? A country where you could take it for granted that those in charge weren't making decisions based on what they think is in your best interest — and not what you think is? History shows us, unfortunately, that the more bloated a government gets, the more this happens. I don't know about you, but I make it a point to make critical decisions for myself and my family, and you should too. You should get a Jase case. It's a personalized emergency kit that contains essential antibiotics and medications that treat the most common and deadly bacterial infections. It provides five lifesaving antibiotics for emergency use. All you have to do is fill out a simple form online, and you'll have it in case you need it. There are add-on options too, like EpiPens and ivermectin.  Jase Medical encourages you to take your family's health into your own hands. Go to https://jasemedical.com and enter code BECK at checkout for a discount on your order.   Relief Factor It's enough of a struggle just to live our lives and try to keep tyranny at bay day after day without also having to deal with pain on a regular basis. And yet, our bodies don't really give us much of a choice. The biggest cause of our pain is inflammation in our joints; I know, because I used to get it so badly in my hands, I couldn't even always button my shirt in the morning — let alone do so many of the things I love to do, like painting or writing letters by hand. Thank God, I found out about Relief Factor and eventually gave it a try. I got my life back, and you could get your life back too. There's only one way to know.  If you're living with aches and pains, see for yourself how Relief Factor — a daily, drug-free supplement — could help you feel and live better every day. Join the over 1 million people who've turned to Relief Factor, and you could start feeling better in three weeks or fewer. Visit https://www.relieffactor.com or call 800-4-RELIEF and save on your first order. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The inside story of how one president forever altered the most powerful legal institution in the country, with consequences that endure today. By the summer of 1941, in the ninth year of his presidency, Franklin Roosevelt had molded his Court. He had appointed seven of the nine justices—the most by any president except George Washington—and handpicked the chief justice.  But the wartime Roosevelt Court had two faces. One was bold and progressive, the other supine and abject, cowed by the charisma of the revered president. The Court at War explores this pivotal period. It provides a cast of unforgettable characters in the justices—from the mercurial, Vienna-born intellectual Felix Frankfurter to the Alabama populist Hugo Black; from the western prodigy William O. Douglas, FDR's initial pick to be his running mate in 1944, to Roosevelt's former attorney general and Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson. The justices' shameless capitulation and unwillingness to cross their beloved president highlight the dangers of an unseemly closeness between Supreme Court justices and their political patrons. But the FDR Court's finest moments also provided a robust defense of individual rights, rights the current Court has put in jeopardy. Sloan's intimate portrait is a vivid, instructive tale for modern times. Cliff Sloan is a professor of constitutional law and criminal justice at Georgetown University Law Center. He has argued before the Supreme Court seven times. He has served in all three branches of the federal Government, including as Special Envoy for Guantanamo Closure, and is the author of The Great Decision: Jefferson, Adams, Marshall, and the Battle for the Supreme Court. His commentary on the Supreme Court and legal issues has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Slate, and other publications, and on television and radio networks. For more info on the book click HERE --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/steve-richards/support

On this day in legal history, August 23 1927, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were executed in the United States. They were Italian-born American anarchists who were controversially convicted of murdering a guard and a paymaster during an armed robbery in 1920. Their trial and execution sparked protests and debates about the justice system, immigration, and political radicalism.Many were critical of the trial and its outcome, including Felix Frankfurter, who was at the time a professor at Harvard Law School and would go on to be appointed to the Supreme Court by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The trial of the Italian anarchists continues to be a subject of interest and debate, particularly regarding their guilt in armed robbery and murder. They were accused of killing two men during a robbery at a shoe factory, but there was no solid evidence linking them to the crime. Their arrest and trial occurred during a period of intense social unrest in the U.S., known as the "Red Scare," marked by anti-immigrant sentiment and fear of radical ideologies. The trial was heavily influenced by their anarchist beliefs and immigrant background, leading to their conviction on July 14, 1921. The proceedings were considered unfair, as the trial judge had sole authority over motions for a new trial and appellate rules limited review of evidence. Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on August 23, 1927, in a case that has since inspired various works of art and literature. The story serves as a reminder of the importance of a fair legal system and the dangers of prejudice and fear in the administration of justice.The Case of Sacco and Vanzetti - The AtlanticEdward Blum's anti-affirmative action group, The American Alliance for Equal Rights, has sued law firms Perkins Coie and Morrison Foerster, alleging that their diversity fellowships are unlawful following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn affirmative action. The suit claims that the firms' fellowships, aimed at hiring diverse candidates, are discriminatory. Perkins Coie has responded by affirming its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and has vowed to defend the lawsuit vigorously. Morrison Foerster has not commented on the matter.The lawsuit follows the Supreme Court's ruling against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, in which affirmative action in admissions was overturned. Since then, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) hiring initiatives have faced increased scrutiny, with warnings from Republican lawmakers that such initiatives may be illegal. Perkins Coie offers diversity fellowships for students from underrepresented backgrounds, including a $15,000 academic scholarship for first-year students and a $25,000 scholarship for second-year students. Morrison Foerster has been sponsoring legal diversity scholarship programs since the 1980s, providing $25,000 to students over two years. Similar programs are common in many large and mid-sized law firms.The American Bar Association is also reviewing the Supreme Court decision to ensure compliance while promoting diversity within the legal profession. The lawsuits against Perkins Coie and Morrison Foerster were filed in federal district courts in Dallas and Miami, respectively. This is part of Blum's continuing campaign against affirmative action, which recently included a lawsuit against a venture capital fund for financing startups run by Black women. The legal actions highlight the ongoing tension and debate surrounding affirmative action and diversity initiatives in the professional world.Perkins Coie, Morrison Foerster Sued Over DEI Programs (2)The former head of JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s precious-metals desk, Michael Nowak, and top trader Gregg Smith were sentenced to prison for spoofing, fraud, and attempted market manipulation. Nowak received a one-year and one-day term, while Smith was given two years, marking the harshest sentence in recent government efforts against questionable trading practices. The judge emphasized the seriousness of the offense, stating that it undermined market integrity. The sentences were meant to send a message that market manipulation will be punished. Both men plan to appeal their convictions.The case is part of a broader crackdown on illegal spoofing, where traders place and quickly cancel bogus orders to manipulate prices. Smith and Nowak used this technique to manipulate gold and silver prices from 2008 to 2016. Convictions in this case follow a series of wins by prosecutors against some of Wall Street's biggest banks. In 2020, JPMorgan agreed to pay $920 million to settle related allegations, the largest fine for market manipulation since the 2008 financial crisis.Witnesses, including three former team members who pleaded guilty, testified against Nowak and Smith, describing how they placed huge orders they never intended to execute. Spoofing became illegal after the passage of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, and the JPMorgan case highlights the ongoing efforts by federal authorities to ensure compliance and maintain trust in the financial markets.JPMorgan's ‘Most Prolific Spoofer' Gets Two Years in Prison (1)The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a request from West Virginia and 26 other Republican attorneys general to challenge the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's (CFPB) funding mechanism at oral arguments this fall. The states had filed a petition in July, arguing their expertise in consumer protection issues gave them insight into how an unbounded CFPB could damage consumer-financial markets and impair states' abilities to regulate those markets. The Supreme Court denied the motion without explanation, in line with its rare granting of such motions. The court is set to hear arguments on October 3 in the CFPB's appeal to a ruling that declared the agency's funding unconstitutional.Supreme Court Blocks West Virginia Bid to Challenge CFPB FundingMeta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has been accused of breaking European data privacy rules in Norway, according to the country's data regulator, Datatilsynet. The regulator has imposed a fine of one million crowns ($94,145) per day since August 14 for breaching users' privacy by harvesting data and using it for targeted advertising. Meta is seeking a temporary injunction against the order, arguing that it had committed to ask for user consent and that the regulator's process was unnecessary and rushed. If the European Data Protection Board agrees with the Norwegian regulator's decision, the fine could become permanent and have wider implications across Europe.Facebook owner Meta breaks privacy rules, Norway regulator tells court | ReutersHollywood studios and streaming services released a revised proposal to the striking Writers' Guild of America (WGA) on Tuesday, but the union urged members to continue picketing, stating that the new offer failed to address all their concerns. The WGA, joined by members of the Screen Actors Guild, had walked off the job on May 2, halting productions across Hollywood and costing the California economy billions of dollars. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) changed its offer to include new details about compensation, minimum staffing, residual payments, and curbs on artificial intelligence.The latest proposal includes a compounded 13% pay increase over a three-year contract and stipulates that AI-generated content will not be considered "literary material." Streaming platforms also offered to provide the WGA with confidential quarterly reports on the total number of hours viewed for each made-for-streaming show.AMPTP President Carol Lombardini expressed commitment to ending the strike and hopefulness that the WGA would work toward resolution. However, the WGA met with executives from Walt Disney, Warner Bros, NBCUniversal Studio Group, and Netflix to discuss the new offer and stated that the meeting was an attempt to make them "cave."The union explained why the offer fell short and "failed to sufficiently protect writers from the existential threats that caused us to strike in the first place." Despite this, the WGA plans to continue picketing and will share more details on the state of the negotiations with its members.Hollywood writers union says new proposal from studios not enough | Reuters Get full access to Minimum Competence - Daily Legal News Podcast at www.minimumcomp.com/subscribe

Recorded on the day that the Supreme Court issued its Allen v. Milligan decision, Brad Snyder, Professor of Law at Georgetown University, joins the podcast to discuss his book "Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment" and explains how the Supreme Court has *always* been "small c" conservative, Justice Frankfurter's commitment to judicial restraint, and also explains why J. Edgar Hoover once called Felix Frankfurter "the most dangerous man in America." After decades of hindsight, what is the proper way to view the complicated legacy of Justice Frankfurter--and how does his service compare and contrast to current Supreme Court justices?

In this sweeping narrative, Brad Snyder offers a full and fascinating portrait of the remarkable life and legacy of Felix Frankfurter. This is the biography of an Austrian Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States at age eleven speaking not a word of English, who by age twenty-six befriended former president Theodore Roosevelt, and who by age fifty was one of Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted advisers. It is the story of a man devoted to democratic ideals, a natural orator and often overbearing justice, whose passion allowed him to amass highly influential friends and helped create the liberal establishment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our judicial Zelig, Felix Frankfurter, continues to grab our spotlight as his biographer, Brad Snyder, joins us again - this time, as a sitting Justice.  The many landmark cases that came Frankfurter's way on the Supreme Court allow us to contrast his method of jurisprudence - be it “Thayerism,” “judicial restraint,” or something else - with originalism.  This means that Hugo Black, Frankfurter's colleague on the Court (it's complicated), takes the stage as well, as we look at case after case and see how these different approaches, and their wielders, fare. 

Though relatively short, the 2022 book The Prophet of Harvard Law: James Bradley Thayer and His Legal Legacy (UP of Kansas, 2022) by Andrew Porwancher, Austin Coffey, Taylor Jipp, and Jake Mazeitis, is jam-packed with information about late 19th and early 20th Century legal history and the professionalization of American legal education. This is a moving tale of a professor whose acolytes included some of the giants of American jurisprudence (e.g., the judges and justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Learned Hand and the legal scholars John Henry Wigmore and Roscoe Pound). Even those not directly taught by Thayer, such as Felix Frankfurter, lauded him as an intellectual influence. You may be thinking, “Why should I take the time to read a book about a long-dead Harvard law professor?” Well, because many of the issues that James Bradley Thayer (1831-1902) and his students grappled with have shaped almost every encounter Americans have with the law and affect our rights from the workplace to the schoolroom to the courtroom. Thayer and Wigmore, for example, did pioneering work on the laws of evidence. Hand did the same on the topic of expert testimony. Holmes and Thayer thrashed out the meaning of the word “presumption” as it was used in trials. And on a grander scale, Holmes, Brandeis, and Hand were trained as thinkers on Constitutional law by Thayer. We could all do with a primer on what “living constitutionalism” is, for example. The book is also valuable for its contributions to the field of the history of education and will benefit those researching the development of professional associations and the transformation of universities like Harvard from small liberal arts institutions into major research universities. This is social history at its best. We read about how Thayer attracted bright young men from across the country who applied what they learned under their beloved mentor once they left Harvard and took up posts elsewhere (as Wigmore did as dean at Northwestern Law School) and/or played key roles in major legal cases in the Progressive Era and beyond. Economics. Labor Law. Free speech. They're all here. And “beloved” is not too strong a word for the way these titans of American law regarded Thayer. Early career academics in any field who need a role model of a dedicated teacher could do worse than study the life of James Bradley Thayer. He was the subject of admiration and gratitude decades later by influential men who credited him with providing moral support and practical help when they were first starting out and for setting a standard of learning and hard work that they applied in their judicial and academic careers. Thayer was a networker and mentor par excellence. The book is interesting in itself apart from its subject in that it is a joint work by a professor (Andrew Porwancher) and three of his former students. That is a project worthy of note and something Thayer would almost certainly have endorsed, given how closely he worked with his students when they were at Harvard and, in many cases, for years afterward. It is no exaggeration to say that our lives today were affected by the active law-related personal correspondence between Thayer and his men. Let's hear from Professor Porwancher about what might be called the Thayer Effect and what co-authorship with students entails. Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Though relatively short, the 2022 book The Prophet of Harvard Law: James Bradley Thayer and His Legal Legacy (UP of Kansas, 2022) by Andrew Porwancher, Austin Coffey, Taylor Jipp, and Jake Mazeitis, is jam-packed with information about late 19th and early 20th Century legal history and the professionalization of American legal education. This is a moving tale of a professor whose acolytes included some of the giants of American jurisprudence (e.g., the judges and justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Learned Hand and the legal scholars John Henry Wigmore and Roscoe Pound). Even those not directly taught by Thayer, such as Felix Frankfurter, lauded him as an intellectual influence. You may be thinking, “Why should I take the time to read a book about a long-dead Harvard law professor?” Well, because many of the issues that James Bradley Thayer (1831-1902) and his students grappled with have shaped almost every encounter Americans have with the law and affect our rights from the workplace to the schoolroom to the courtroom. Thayer and Wigmore, for example, did pioneering work on the laws of evidence. Hand did the same on the topic of expert testimony. Holmes and Thayer thrashed out the meaning of the word “presumption” as it was used in trials. And on a grander scale, Holmes, Brandeis, and Hand were trained as thinkers on Constitutional law by Thayer. We could all do with a primer on what “living constitutionalism” is, for example. The book is also valuable for its contributions to the field of the history of education and will benefit those researching the development of professional associations and the transformation of universities like Harvard from small liberal arts institutions into major research universities. This is social history at its best. We read about how Thayer attracted bright young men from across the country who applied what they learned under their beloved mentor once they left Harvard and took up posts elsewhere (as Wigmore did as dean at Northwestern Law School) and/or played key roles in major legal cases in the Progressive Era and beyond. Economics. Labor Law. Free speech. They're all here. And “beloved” is not too strong a word for the way these titans of American law regarded Thayer. Early career academics in any field who need a role model of a dedicated teacher could do worse than study the life of James Bradley Thayer. He was the subject of admiration and gratitude decades later by influential men who credited him with providing moral support and practical help when they were first starting out and for setting a standard of learning and hard work that they applied in their judicial and academic careers. Thayer was a networker and mentor par excellence. The book is interesting in itself apart from its subject in that it is a joint work by a professor (Andrew Porwancher) and three of his former students. That is a project worthy of note and something Thayer would almost certainly have endorsed, given how closely he worked with his students when they were at Harvard and, in many cases, for years afterward. It is no exaggeration to say that our lives today were affected by the active law-related personal correspondence between Thayer and his men. Let's hear from Professor Porwancher about what might be called the Thayer Effect and what co-authorship with students entails. Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Though relatively short, the 2022 book The Prophet of Harvard Law: James Bradley Thayer and His Legal Legacy (UP of Kansas, 2022) by Andrew Porwancher, Austin Coffey, Taylor Jipp, and Jake Mazeitis, is jam-packed with information about late 19th and early 20th Century legal history and the professionalization of American legal education. This is a moving tale of a professor whose acolytes included some of the giants of American jurisprudence (e.g., the judges and justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Learned Hand and the legal scholars John Henry Wigmore and Roscoe Pound). Even those not directly taught by Thayer, such as Felix Frankfurter, lauded him as an intellectual influence. You may be thinking, “Why should I take the time to read a book about a long-dead Harvard law professor?” Well, because many of the issues that James Bradley Thayer (1831-1902) and his students grappled with have shaped almost every encounter Americans have with the law and affect our rights from the workplace to the schoolroom to the courtroom. Thayer and Wigmore, for example, did pioneering work on the laws of evidence. Hand did the same on the topic of expert testimony. Holmes and Thayer thrashed out the meaning of the word “presumption” as it was used in trials. And on a grander scale, Holmes, Brandeis, and Hand were trained as thinkers on Constitutional law by Thayer. We could all do with a primer on what “living constitutionalism” is, for example. The book is also valuable for its contributions to the field of the history of education and will benefit those researching the development of professional associations and the transformation of universities like Harvard from small liberal arts institutions into major research universities. This is social history at its best. We read about how Thayer attracted bright young men from across the country who applied what they learned under their beloved mentor once they left Harvard and took up posts elsewhere (as Wigmore did as dean at Northwestern Law School) and/or played key roles in major legal cases in the Progressive Era and beyond. Economics. Labor Law. Free speech. They're all here. And “beloved” is not too strong a word for the way these titans of American law regarded Thayer. Early career academics in any field who need a role model of a dedicated teacher could do worse than study the life of James Bradley Thayer. He was the subject of admiration and gratitude decades later by influential men who credited him with providing moral support and practical help when they were first starting out and for setting a standard of learning and hard work that they applied in their judicial and academic careers. Thayer was a networker and mentor par excellence. The book is interesting in itself apart from its subject in that it is a joint work by a professor (Andrew Porwancher) and three of his former students. That is a project worthy of note and something Thayer would almost certainly have endorsed, given how closely he worked with his students when they were at Harvard and, in many cases, for years afterward. It is no exaggeration to say that our lives today were affected by the active law-related personal correspondence between Thayer and his men. Let's hear from Professor Porwancher about what might be called the Thayer Effect and what co-authorship with students entails. Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/biography

Though relatively short, the 2022 book The Prophet of Harvard Law: James Bradley Thayer and His Legal Legacy (UP of Kansas, 2022) by Andrew Porwancher, Austin Coffey, Taylor Jipp, and Jake Mazeitis, is jam-packed with information about late 19th and early 20th Century legal history and the professionalization of American legal education. This is a moving tale of a professor whose acolytes included some of the giants of American jurisprudence (e.g., the judges and justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Learned Hand and the legal scholars John Henry Wigmore and Roscoe Pound). Even those not directly taught by Thayer, such as Felix Frankfurter, lauded him as an intellectual influence. You may be thinking, “Why should I take the time to read a book about a long-dead Harvard law professor?” Well, because many of the issues that James Bradley Thayer (1831-1902) and his students grappled with have shaped almost every encounter Americans have with the law and affect our rights from the workplace to the schoolroom to the courtroom. Thayer and Wigmore, for example, did pioneering work on the laws of evidence. Hand did the same on the topic of expert testimony. Holmes and Thayer thrashed out the meaning of the word “presumption” as it was used in trials. And on a grander scale, Holmes, Brandeis, and Hand were trained as thinkers on Constitutional law by Thayer. We could all do with a primer on what “living constitutionalism” is, for example. The book is also valuable for its contributions to the field of the history of education and will benefit those researching the development of professional associations and the transformation of universities like Harvard from small liberal arts institutions into major research universities. This is social history at its best. We read about how Thayer attracted bright young men from across the country who applied what they learned under their beloved mentor once they left Harvard and took up posts elsewhere (as Wigmore did as dean at Northwestern Law School) and/or played key roles in major legal cases in the Progressive Era and beyond. Economics. Labor Law. Free speech. They're all here. And “beloved” is not too strong a word for the way these titans of American law regarded Thayer. Early career academics in any field who need a role model of a dedicated teacher could do worse than study the life of James Bradley Thayer. He was the subject of admiration and gratitude decades later by influential men who credited him with providing moral support and practical help when they were first starting out and for setting a standard of learning and hard work that they applied in their judicial and academic careers. Thayer was a networker and mentor par excellence. The book is interesting in itself apart from its subject in that it is a joint work by a professor (Andrew Porwancher) and three of his former students. That is a project worthy of note and something Thayer would almost certainly have endorsed, given how closely he worked with his students when they were at Harvard and, in many cases, for years afterward. It is no exaggeration to say that our lives today were affected by the active law-related personal correspondence between Thayer and his men. Let's hear from Professor Porwancher about what might be called the Thayer Effect and what co-authorship with students entails. Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Though relatively short, the 2022 book The Prophet of Harvard Law: James Bradley Thayer and His Legal Legacy (UP of Kansas, 2022) by Andrew Porwancher, Austin Coffey, Taylor Jipp, and Jake Mazeitis, is jam-packed with information about late 19th and early 20th Century legal history and the professionalization of American legal education. This is a moving tale of a professor whose acolytes included some of the giants of American jurisprudence (e.g., the judges and justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Learned Hand and the legal scholars John Henry Wigmore and Roscoe Pound). Even those not directly taught by Thayer, such as Felix Frankfurter, lauded him as an intellectual influence. You may be thinking, “Why should I take the time to read a book about a long-dead Harvard law professor?” Well, because many of the issues that James Bradley Thayer (1831-1902) and his students grappled with have shaped almost every encounter Americans have with the law and affect our rights from the workplace to the schoolroom to the courtroom. Thayer and Wigmore, for example, did pioneering work on the laws of evidence. Hand did the same on the topic of expert testimony. Holmes and Thayer thrashed out the meaning of the word “presumption” as it was used in trials. And on a grander scale, Holmes, Brandeis, and Hand were trained as thinkers on Constitutional law by Thayer. We could all do with a primer on what “living constitutionalism” is, for example. The book is also valuable for its contributions to the field of the history of education and will benefit those researching the development of professional associations and the transformation of universities like Harvard from small liberal arts institutions into major research universities. This is social history at its best. We read about how Thayer attracted bright young men from across the country who applied what they learned under their beloved mentor once they left Harvard and took up posts elsewhere (as Wigmore did as dean at Northwestern Law School) and/or played key roles in major legal cases in the Progressive Era and beyond. Economics. Labor Law. Free speech. They're all here. And “beloved” is not too strong a word for the way these titans of American law regarded Thayer. Early career academics in any field who need a role model of a dedicated teacher could do worse than study the life of James Bradley Thayer. He was the subject of admiration and gratitude decades later by influential men who credited him with providing moral support and practical help when they were first starting out and for setting a standard of learning and hard work that they applied in their judicial and academic careers. Thayer was a networker and mentor par excellence. The book is interesting in itself apart from its subject in that it is a joint work by a professor (Andrew Porwancher) and three of his former students. That is a project worthy of note and something Thayer would almost certainly have endorsed, given how closely he worked with his students when they were at Harvard and, in many cases, for years afterward. It is no exaggeration to say that our lives today were affected by the active law-related personal correspondence between Thayer and his men. Let's hear from Professor Porwancher about what might be called the Thayer Effect and what co-authorship with students entails. Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Though relatively short, the 2022 book The Prophet of Harvard Law: James Bradley Thayer and His Legal Legacy (UP of Kansas, 2022) by Andrew Porwancher, Austin Coffey, Taylor Jipp, and Jake Mazeitis, is jam-packed with information about late 19th and early 20th Century legal history and the professionalization of American legal education. This is a moving tale of a professor whose acolytes included some of the giants of American jurisprudence (e.g., the judges and justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Learned Hand and the legal scholars John Henry Wigmore and Roscoe Pound). Even those not directly taught by Thayer, such as Felix Frankfurter, lauded him as an intellectual influence. You may be thinking, “Why should I take the time to read a book about a long-dead Harvard law professor?” Well, because many of the issues that James Bradley Thayer (1831-1902) and his students grappled with have shaped almost every encounter Americans have with the law and affect our rights from the workplace to the schoolroom to the courtroom. Thayer and Wigmore, for example, did pioneering work on the laws of evidence. Hand did the same on the topic of expert testimony. Holmes and Thayer thrashed out the meaning of the word “presumption” as it was used in trials. And on a grander scale, Holmes, Brandeis, and Hand were trained as thinkers on Constitutional law by Thayer. We could all do with a primer on what “living constitutionalism” is, for example. The book is also valuable for its contributions to the field of the history of education and will benefit those researching the development of professional associations and the transformation of universities like Harvard from small liberal arts institutions into major research universities. This is social history at its best. We read about how Thayer attracted bright young men from across the country who applied what they learned under their beloved mentor once they left Harvard and took up posts elsewhere (as Wigmore did as dean at Northwestern Law School) and/or played key roles in major legal cases in the Progressive Era and beyond. Economics. Labor Law. Free speech. They're all here. And “beloved” is not too strong a word for the way these titans of American law regarded Thayer. Early career academics in any field who need a role model of a dedicated teacher could do worse than study the life of James Bradley Thayer. He was the subject of admiration and gratitude decades later by influential men who credited him with providing moral support and practical help when they were first starting out and for setting a standard of learning and hard work that they applied in their judicial and academic careers. Thayer was a networker and mentor par excellence. The book is interesting in itself apart from its subject in that it is a joint work by a professor (Andrew Porwancher) and three of his former students. That is a project worthy of note and something Thayer would almost certainly have endorsed, given how closely he worked with his students when they were at Harvard and, in many cases, for years afterward. It is no exaggeration to say that our lives today were affected by the active law-related personal correspondence between Thayer and his men. Let's hear from Professor Porwancher about what might be called the Thayer Effect and what co-authorship with students entails. Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Though relatively short, the 2022 book The Prophet of Harvard Law: James Bradley Thayer and His Legal Legacy (UP of Kansas, 2022) by Andrew Porwancher, Austin Coffey, Taylor Jipp, and Jake Mazeitis, is jam-packed with information about late 19th and early 20th Century legal history and the professionalization of American legal education. This is a moving tale of a professor whose acolytes included some of the giants of American jurisprudence (e.g., the judges and justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis, Learned Hand and the legal scholars John Henry Wigmore and Roscoe Pound). Even those not directly taught by Thayer, such as Felix Frankfurter, lauded him as an intellectual influence. You may be thinking, “Why should I take the time to read a book about a long-dead Harvard law professor?” Well, because many of the issues that James Bradley Thayer (1831-1902) and his students grappled with have shaped almost every encounter Americans have with the law and affect our rights from the workplace to the schoolroom to the courtroom. Thayer and Wigmore, for example, did pioneering work on the laws of evidence. Hand did the same on the topic of expert testimony. Holmes and Thayer thrashed out the meaning of the word “presumption” as it was used in trials. And on a grander scale, Holmes, Brandeis, and Hand were trained as thinkers on Constitutional law by Thayer. We could all do with a primer on what “living constitutionalism” is, for example. The book is also valuable for its contributions to the field of the history of education and will benefit those researching the development of professional associations and the transformation of universities like Harvard from small liberal arts institutions into major research universities. This is social history at its best. We read about how Thayer attracted bright young men from across the country who applied what they learned under their beloved mentor once they left Harvard and took up posts elsewhere (as Wigmore did as dean at Northwestern Law School) and/or played key roles in major legal cases in the Progressive Era and beyond. Economics. Labor Law. Free speech. They're all here. And “beloved” is not too strong a word for the way these titans of American law regarded Thayer. Early career academics in any field who need a role model of a dedicated teacher could do worse than study the life of James Bradley Thayer. He was the subject of admiration and gratitude decades later by influential men who credited him with providing moral support and practical help when they were first starting out and for setting a standard of learning and hard work that they applied in their judicial and academic careers. Thayer was a networker and mentor par excellence. The book is interesting in itself apart from its subject in that it is a joint work by a professor (Andrew Porwancher) and three of his former students. That is a project worthy of note and something Thayer would almost certainly have endorsed, given how closely he worked with his students when they were at Harvard and, in many cases, for years afterward. It is no exaggeration to say that our lives today were affected by the active law-related personal correspondence between Thayer and his men. Let's hear from Professor Porwancher about what might be called the Thayer Effect and what co-authorship with students entails. Hope J. Leman is a grants researcher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you know who was Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted advisor? Do you know who practically invented the law clerk infrastructure and controlled the clerk assignments to 60% of the justices at once?  Do you know who was a key early reporter for The New Republic? Do you know who was the first Jewish professor at the Harvard Law School?  Who was the sharpest critic of the Supreme Court only to become a Justice of that Court?  Who went to Versailles and advised both Weizmann and T.E. Lawrence? Who fought bitter battles with Harvard's President again and again? These are all the same person:  Felix Frankfurter.  A new and important biography of Justice Frankfurter tells this incredible story, and he joins our podcast today:  Professor Brad Snyder.  Believe it or not, the superlatives you just read only scratch the surface of this Man Who Was Everywhere.  You have to hear it all.

The conventional wisdom about Felix Frankfurter--Harvard law professor and Supreme Court justice--is that he struggled to fill the seat once held by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Scholars have portrayed Frankfurter as a judicial failure, a liberal lawyer turned conservative justice, and the Warren Court's principal villain. And yet none of these characterizations rings true. A pro-government, pro-civil rights liberal who rejected shifting political labels, Frankfurter advocated for judicial restraint--he believed that people should seek change not from the courts but through the democratic political process. Indeed, he knew American presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, advised Franklin Roosevelt, and inspired his students and law clerks to enter government service. Organized around presidential administrations and major political and world events, this definitive biography chronicles Frankfurter's impact on American life. As a young government lawyer, he befriended Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, and Holmes. As a Harvard law professor, he earned fame as a civil libertarian, Zionist, and New Deal power broker. As a justice, he hired the first African American law clerk and helped the Court achieve unanimity in outlawing racially segregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education. In Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment (Norton, 2022), Brad Snyder offers a full and fascinating portrait of the remarkable life and legacy of a long misunderstood American figure. This is the biography of an Austrian Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States at age eleven speaking not a word of English, who by age twenty-six befriended former president Theodore Roosevelt, and who by age fifty was one of Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted advisers. It is the story of a man devoted to democratic ideals, a natural orator and often overbearing justice, whose passion allowed him to amass highly influential friends and helped create the liberal establishment. William Domnarski is a longtime lawyer who before and during has been a literary guy, with a Ph.D. in English. He's written five books on judges, lawyers, and courts, two with Oxford, one with Illinois, one with Michigan, and one with the American Bar Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

The conventional wisdom about Felix Frankfurter--Harvard law professor and Supreme Court justice--is that he struggled to fill the seat once held by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Scholars have portrayed Frankfurter as a judicial failure, a liberal lawyer turned conservative justice, and the Warren Court's principal villain. And yet none of these characterizations rings true. A pro-government, pro-civil rights liberal who rejected shifting political labels, Frankfurter advocated for judicial restraint--he believed that people should seek change not from the courts but through the democratic political process. Indeed, he knew American presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, advised Franklin Roosevelt, and inspired his students and law clerks to enter government service. Organized around presidential administrations and major political and world events, this definitive biography chronicles Frankfurter's impact on American life. As a young government lawyer, he befriended Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, and Holmes. As a Harvard law professor, he earned fame as a civil libertarian, Zionist, and New Deal power broker. As a justice, he hired the first African American law clerk and helped the Court achieve unanimity in outlawing racially segregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education. In Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment (Norton, 2022), Brad Snyder offers a full and fascinating portrait of the remarkable life and legacy of a long misunderstood American figure. This is the biography of an Austrian Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States at age eleven speaking not a word of English, who by age twenty-six befriended former president Theodore Roosevelt, and who by age fifty was one of Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted advisers. It is the story of a man devoted to democratic ideals, a natural orator and often overbearing justice, whose passion allowed him to amass highly influential friends and helped create the liberal establishment. William Domnarski is a longtime lawyer who before and during has been a literary guy, with a Ph.D. in English. He's written five books on judges, lawyers, and courts, two with Oxford, one with Illinois, one with Michigan, and one with the American Bar Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

The conventional wisdom about Felix Frankfurter--Harvard law professor and Supreme Court justice--is that he struggled to fill the seat once held by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Scholars have portrayed Frankfurter as a judicial failure, a liberal lawyer turned conservative justice, and the Warren Court's principal villain. And yet none of these characterizations rings true. A pro-government, pro-civil rights liberal who rejected shifting political labels, Frankfurter advocated for judicial restraint--he believed that people should seek change not from the courts but through the democratic political process. Indeed, he knew American presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, advised Franklin Roosevelt, and inspired his students and law clerks to enter government service. Organized around presidential administrations and major political and world events, this definitive biography chronicles Frankfurter's impact on American life. As a young government lawyer, he befriended Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, and Holmes. As a Harvard law professor, he earned fame as a civil libertarian, Zionist, and New Deal power broker. As a justice, he hired the first African American law clerk and helped the Court achieve unanimity in outlawing racially segregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education. In Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment (Norton, 2022), Brad Snyder offers a full and fascinating portrait of the remarkable life and legacy of a long misunderstood American figure. This is the biography of an Austrian Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States at age eleven speaking not a word of English, who by age twenty-six befriended former president Theodore Roosevelt, and who by age fifty was one of Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted advisers. It is the story of a man devoted to democratic ideals, a natural orator and often overbearing justice, whose passion allowed him to amass highly influential friends and helped create the liberal establishment. William Domnarski is a longtime lawyer who before and during has been a literary guy, with a Ph.D. in English. He's written five books on judges, lawyers, and courts, two with Oxford, one with Illinois, one with Michigan, and one with the American Bar Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

The conventional wisdom about Felix Frankfurter--Harvard law professor and Supreme Court justice--is that he struggled to fill the seat once held by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Scholars have portrayed Frankfurter as a judicial failure, a liberal lawyer turned conservative justice, and the Warren Court's principal villain. And yet none of these characterizations rings true. A pro-government, pro-civil rights liberal who rejected shifting political labels, Frankfurter advocated for judicial restraint--he believed that people should seek change not from the courts but through the democratic political process. Indeed, he knew American presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, advised Franklin Roosevelt, and inspired his students and law clerks to enter government service. Organized around presidential administrations and major political and world events, this definitive biography chronicles Frankfurter's impact on American life. As a young government lawyer, he befriended Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, and Holmes. As a Harvard law professor, he earned fame as a civil libertarian, Zionist, and New Deal power broker. As a justice, he hired the first African American law clerk and helped the Court achieve unanimity in outlawing racially segregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education. In Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment (Norton, 2022), Brad Snyder offers a full and fascinating portrait of the remarkable life and legacy of a long misunderstood American figure. This is the biography of an Austrian Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States at age eleven speaking not a word of English, who by age twenty-six befriended former president Theodore Roosevelt, and who by age fifty was one of Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted advisers. It is the story of a man devoted to democratic ideals, a natural orator and often overbearing justice, whose passion allowed him to amass highly influential friends and helped create the liberal establishment. William Domnarski is a longtime lawyer who before and during has been a literary guy, with a Ph.D. in English. He's written five books on judges, lawyers, and courts, two with Oxford, one with Illinois, one with Michigan, and one with the American Bar Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

The conventional wisdom about Felix Frankfurter--Harvard law professor and Supreme Court justice--is that he struggled to fill the seat once held by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Scholars have portrayed Frankfurter as a judicial failure, a liberal lawyer turned conservative justice, and the Warren Court's principal villain. And yet none of these characterizations rings true. A pro-government, pro-civil rights liberal who rejected shifting political labels, Frankfurter advocated for judicial restraint--he believed that people should seek change not from the courts but through the democratic political process. Indeed, he knew American presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, advised Franklin Roosevelt, and inspired his students and law clerks to enter government service. Organized around presidential administrations and major political and world events, this definitive biography chronicles Frankfurter's impact on American life. As a young government lawyer, he befriended Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, and Holmes. As a Harvard law professor, he earned fame as a civil libertarian, Zionist, and New Deal power broker. As a justice, he hired the first African American law clerk and helped the Court achieve unanimity in outlawing racially segregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education. In Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment (Norton, 2022), Brad Snyder offers a full and fascinating portrait of the remarkable life and legacy of a long misunderstood American figure. This is the biography of an Austrian Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States at age eleven speaking not a word of English, who by age twenty-six befriended former president Theodore Roosevelt, and who by age fifty was one of Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted advisers. It is the story of a man devoted to democratic ideals, a natural orator and often overbearing justice, whose passion allowed him to amass highly influential friends and helped create the liberal establishment. William Domnarski is a longtime lawyer who before and during has been a literary guy, with a Ph.D. in English. He's written five books on judges, lawyers, and courts, two with Oxford, one with Illinois, one with Michigan, and one with the American Bar Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

The conventional wisdom about Felix Frankfurter--Harvard law professor and Supreme Court justice--is that he struggled to fill the seat once held by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Scholars have portrayed Frankfurter as a judicial failure, a liberal lawyer turned conservative justice, and the Warren Court's principal villain. And yet none of these characterizations rings true. A pro-government, pro-civil rights liberal who rejected shifting political labels, Frankfurter advocated for judicial restraint--he believed that people should seek change not from the courts but through the democratic political process. Indeed, he knew American presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson, advised Franklin Roosevelt, and inspired his students and law clerks to enter government service. Organized around presidential administrations and major political and world events, this definitive biography chronicles Frankfurter's impact on American life. As a young government lawyer, he befriended Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, and Holmes. As a Harvard law professor, he earned fame as a civil libertarian, Zionist, and New Deal power broker. As a justice, he hired the first African American law clerk and helped the Court achieve unanimity in outlawing racially segregated schools in Brown v. Board of Education. In Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment (Norton, 2022), Brad Snyder offers a full and fascinating portrait of the remarkable life and legacy of a long misunderstood American figure. This is the biography of an Austrian Jewish immigrant who arrived in the United States at age eleven speaking not a word of English, who by age twenty-six befriended former president Theodore Roosevelt, and who by age fifty was one of Franklin Roosevelt's most trusted advisers. It is the story of a man devoted to democratic ideals, a natural orator and often overbearing justice, whose passion allowed him to amass highly influential friends and helped create the liberal establishment. William Domnarski is a longtime lawyer who before and during has been a literary guy, with a Ph.D. in English. He's written five books on judges, lawyers, and courts, two with Oxford, one with Illinois, one with Michigan, and one with the American Bar Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brad Snyder - Georgetown law professor who teaches constitutional law, constitutional history, and sports law. He was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in constitutional studies and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Supreme Court History. He's the author of the new book, “Democratic Justice: Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment.” A book defined as “the definitive biography of Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court justice and champion of twentieth-century American liberal democracy.” He joins Tavis for a conversation unpacking his newest publication

Examining the life and views of Felix Frankfurter, a justice who served the Supreme Court from 1939 to 1962. An advocate for narrow decisions and democratic process deference, Frankfurter's vision is discussed in context of current political climate. The podcast also features an in-depth analysis of Brad Snyder's book, 'Democratic Justice, Felix Frankfurter, the Supreme Court, and the Making of the Liberal Establishment', providing remarkable insights into Frankfurter's personal experiences and his contribution to the liberal establishment.

Peter Malinauskas is the 47th Premier of South Australia. He gave a terrific victory speech on election night, 19th March 2022, one described by The Australian's literary critic as having 'flawlessly controlled momentum' and reaffirming a belief in democracy. The Premier is a wonderful interviewee and talks about how he wrote the speech, and the importance of victory and concession speeches in the peaceful handover of power in Australia and in democracies generally. And he talks about his footy career with 'the Scum' at University Blacks Adelaide. He's still playing, even as Premier! Speakola is made entirely by Tony and supported by listeners. There is a Patreon page which you can join If you want to offer Tony regular support. Also we welcome credit card donations,  which can be monthly or one off. Thanks to Mike Jones, John Groarke, Marjorie Spiller, Alison Johnston and Geoffrey Stump for recent donations. Subscribe to our newsletter if you want a fortnightly email setting out great speeches by theme. Subscribe to Tony Wilson's 'Good one, Wilson' substack, to receive a weekly taste of his writing. Spread the speakola word! Tag @byTonyWilson @speakola_ on Twitter facebook and Instagram. Email comments or ideas to tony@speakola.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Judicial interpretation is the way in which the judiciary construes the law, particularly constitutional documents, legislation and frequently used vocabulary. This is an important issue in some common law jurisdictions such as the United States, Australia and Canada, because the supreme courts of those nations can overturn laws made by their legislatures via a process called judicial review. For example, the United States Supreme Court has decided such topics as the legality of slavery as in the Dred Scott decision, and desegregation as in the Brown v Board of Education decision, and abortion rights as in the Roe v Wade decision. As a result, how justices interpret the constitution, and the ways in which they approach this task has a political aspect. Terms describing types of judicial interpretation can be ambiguous; for example, the term judicial conservatism can vary in meaning depending on what is trying to be "conserved". One can look at judicial interpretation along a continuum from judicial restraint to judicial activism, with different viewpoints along the continuum. Phrases which are regularly used, for example in standard contract documents, may attract judicial interpretation applicable within a particular jurisdiction whenever the same words are used in the same context. In the United States, there are different methods to perform judicial interpretation: Balancing happens when judges weigh one set of interests or rights against an opposing set, typically used to make rulings in First Amendment cases. For example, cases involving freedom of speech sometimes require justices to make a distinction between legally permissible speech and speech that can be restricted or banned for, say, reasons of safety, and the task then is for justices to balance these conflicting claims. The balancing approach was criticized by Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter who argued that the Constitution gives no guidance about how to weigh or measure divergent interests. Doctrinalism considers how various parts of the Constitution have been "shaped by the Court's own jurisprudence", according to Finn.

Podcast #27 is short, covering the testimony of Mrs. Priscilla Hiss and the “character witnesses.”  Mrs. Hiss corroborates her husband down the line.  However, she is notably nervous on the witness stand, and admits to changing her story in a few ways, all favorable to her husband, since The Grand Jury.  Favorable testimony by family members is risky.  It's a “dog bites man” story, no surprise.  You don't expect them to incriminate their loved ones, especially the family breadwinner back when women couldn't get good jobs.  On the other hand, any slip up is a “man bites dog” story, and that can hurt the defendant.  The “character witnesses” were almost two dozen eminent personages who testified to Hiss's good or excellent reputation for loyalty and truthfulness.  Some of them, however, slipped up a bit.  On the whole, they probably helped Hiss.   FURTHER RESEARCH: I noted in Podcast #2 that Mrs. Hiss was something of a scold, disliked by Hiss's mother and many of his male friends.  She was ‘an uppity woman' by the standards of her time.  She graduated from college and took some grad school courses, and was the co-author of a book “Research in Fine Arts in the Colleges and Universities of the United States.”  (I found a copy on Amazon!). William Marbury, a childhood friend of Hiss and one of his major attorneys, wrote that “[t]here was a great deal of the knight-errant in [Alger's] make-up, and the girls to whom he attached himself . . . were almost always in some sort of difficulty.”  (Marbury at 76.). Marbury thought that Priscilla was “a rather self-assertive woman, who had no intention of letting Alger ‘steal the show.'  It almost seemed as if she resented the attention which his friends paid to him.  Like Anthony Trollope's Mrs. Proudie, she would interrupt him when he was asked for his opinion and would answer for him.”  (Marbury at 77.). When Marbury was talking with both Alger and Priscilla in preparation of Alger's libel suit, Marbury wrote “I found my interview with Priscilla somewhat mistifying.  . . .I got the impression that she felt that in some way she was responsible for the troubles that had come to Alger.”  (Marbury at 88.)     Concerning the character witnesses for Hiss, I pass on one ‘inside' observation.  When I was a lawyer, I worked in the same place as an attorney who, long before, had clerked for Stanley Reed, one of the Supreme Court Justices who testified to Hiss's reputation.  I emailed this lawyer once, noting my interest in the Case.  I also reminded him that both Reed and Felix Frankfurter had testified for Hiss, and asked if he had any memories that he wished to share with me.  He replied that Frankfurter had testified voluntarily, that Reed had insisted on being subpoenaed, and that Reed thought that Frankfurter should have insisted on being subpoenaed, too.   Questions:  Do you think Mrs. Hiss's testimony helped or hurt the Defense on the whole?  Did her corroboration of her husband add any weight to his testimony, perhaps by adding a few facts and details that added life and credibility to her husband's larger story?  Did her nervous manner and her slips hurt his case more than her corroboration helped it?  If she had not testified, on the other hand, would her absence have been conspicuous enough to hurt her husband?  Does it help to get five Judges (including two from The Supreme Court!), Ambassadors, and past and future candidates for President say that everyone thought the world of you?  What sort of reputation does a good spy have?  Or is that a cheap shot against so many esteemed personages?  If you were a lower middle class member of the jury with a high school education, would all this Establishment firepower bowl you over?  Or might you be offended by all the Harvard grads telling you what to think?

How New York and New Yorkers Impacted the Supreme Court On this week’s show we will explore the impact of New York City and New Yorkers on the United States Supreme Court, from the establishment of the Republic right up to the present day. My guest will be teacher (and lawyer!) Robert Pigott, author of "New York’s Legal Landmarks", a historical guidebook to our court buildings, history and lore of New York’s legal system through the ages. Segment 1 Jeff introduces his first guest Robert Pigott a lawyer and teacher. The first question comes from Jeff, who asks Robert about when he first entered law school. Robert mentions his time as a public school teacher before entering law school. Jeff then asks what took Robert to the NY attorney’s office and the charity bureau. Robert talks about leaving the private sector to becoming a regulator for nonprofits all over New York and how it introduced him to many diverse groups of people. Robert goes on to talk about the journey that lead him to his job. Jeff asks Robert about what makes the low-income housing offered by fifth houses create. Jeff asks who were the prominent New Yorkers who helped draft the constitution in the 1700s. They then talk about John Jay, the first supreme chief justice elected by George Washington, and his impact on the history of New York. Segment 2 Robert explains what the circuit course was and what judges and practices were unique to it. Jeff mentions Henry Brockholms Livingston as part of one of the first “dream teams” with Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. The dream team served on one of the most popular trails of the time to acquit a man of murder. Jeff talks about Columbia Law School and asks Robert to run down the history of one of our nation’s most historic colleges. Jeff asks Robert about Albert Cardozo’s legal career. Cardozo was one of the city’s most prominent lawyers in the 1800s and was elected to the supreme court of New York. He served on the U.S supreme court until he died in 1885.  Segment 3 Jeff asks Robert what inspired him to write his book “New York’s Legal Landmarks.” Robert explains his inspiration came from his love of the city’s legal buildings, making him decide to research the buildings and write a book. They then discuss Robert Even Hughes, who was a supreme court justice with a prolific career in U.S politics. Hughes made an unsuccessful bid at the presidency and barely lost to Woodrow Wilson in 1916. Jeff asks what role Hughes played in preventing the court from being expanded by lawmakers. Jeff brings up Felix Frankfurter, who lived in the Lower East Side and became another prominent lawyer in New York who went to Harvard Law School. Because of his Jewish heritage, he had trouble finding a job. Eventually, he got a job at a prestigious law firm, becoming a supreme court justice nominated by Franklin Roosevelt.  Segment 4 Jeff brings up Harland Fisk Stone, a U.S Attorney General who started as an associate justice. Jeff and Robert next talked about Antonin Scalia, a Queens native and a supreme court justice from 1986 to 2016. Despite having different ideologies Scalia was great friends with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, with the two of them sharing a love for opera. They then begin talking about Ginsburg and her appointment from President Bill Clinton. Jeff brings up Manhattan native Elena Kagan and her legal history before being in the supreme court.

“Gratitude is one of the least articulate of the emotions, especially when it is deep.” – Felix Frankfurter, American Supreme Court Justice

On March 4, 1801, Thomas Jefferson, the newly elected president, gave his first inaugural address. Jefferson eloquently dismissed the logic behind the Sedition Act of 1798, which had sent Republican critics of then-Federalist President John Adams to prison: We are all republicans: we are all federalists. If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union, or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated, where reason is left free to combat it. Based on this strong commitment to a robust protection of free speech, one might have expected the First Amendment to play a key role in entrenching the Jeffersonian vision of free expression. But instead, it became an almost dead letter for more than a century until revived by an iconic but unlikely champion of the First Amendment: Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. In this conversation, professor Thomas Healy explains how Wendell Holmes changed his mind on free speech and laid the foundation for the current strong legal protection of the First Amendment. Thomas Healy is a professor of law at Seton Hall University School of Law and the author of the award-winning book “The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind--And Changed the History of Free Speech in America”.  The conversation will explore: Why the First Amendment remained a dead letter in 19th century America. How Oliver Wendell Holmes’ background shaped his opinions and outlook. How Oliver Wendell Holmes long upheld a “Blackstonian” conception of free speech protecting only against prior restraints on, not subsequent punishments of, speech.   How the Blackstonian conception of free speech permitted the federal and local governments to restrict and punish everything from peaceful public protests, obscenity, and political speech of “bad tendency.” How the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918 led to dramatic restrictions of political speech and indictments of thousands of activists protesting American participation in World War I.  The remarkable development in Wendell Holmes’ conception of the First Amendment, from his opinion upholding conviction in the 1919 case of Schenck v. United States to his famous dissenting opinion in Abrams v. United States.  How a number of young scholars like Learned Hand, Harold Laski, Zechariah Chafee, and Felix Frankfurter were instrumental in changing Wendell Holmes’ mind on the limits of free speech.  How Oliver Wendell Holmes introduced the clear and present danger test, which would become an important test under First Amendment law over the coming decades. Whether Wendell Holmes’ legacy will endure in the 21st century, and would he even want it to in the digital age? Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall. You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud. Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages, or visit the podcast’s website at freespeechhistory.com. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

The Supreme Court may not have been conceptualized as a co-equal branch of the federal government, but it became one as a result of the political maneuvering of Chief Justice John Marshall. The fourth (and longest-serving) chief justice was "a great lover of power," according to historian Jill Lepore, but he was also a great lover of secrecy. Marshall believed, in order for the justices to confer with each other candidly, their papers needed to remain secret in perpetuity. It was under this veil of secrecy that the biggest heist in the history of the Supreme Court took place.  The key voices: Jill Lepore, professor of American history at Harvard University The key links: "The Great Paper Caper," The New Yorker (2014) Felix Frankfurter, Supreme Court justice 1939 to 1962 Leadership support for More Perfect is provided by The Joyce Foundation. Additional funding is provided by The Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation. Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project in collaboration with the Legal Information Institute at Cornell. 

When Chief Justice Earl Warren was asked at the end of his career, “What was the most important case of your tenure?”, there were a lot of answers he could have given. After all, he had presided over some of the most important decisions in the court’s history — cases that dealt with segregation in schools, the right to an attorney, the right to remain silent, just to name a few. But his answer was a surprise: He said, “Baker v. Carr,” a 1962 redistricting case.  On this episode of More Perfect, we talk about why this case was so important; important enough, in fact, that it pushed one Supreme Court justice to a nervous breakdown, brought a boiling feud to a head, put one justice in the hospital, and changed the course of the Supreme Court — and the nation — forever. Associate Justice William O. Douglas (L) and Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter (R) (Harris & Ewing Photography/Library of Congress) Top Row (left-right): Charles E. Whittaker, John M. Harlan,William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart. Bottom Row (left-right): William O. Douglas, Hugo L. Black, Earl Warren, Felix Frankfurter, Tom C. Clark. (Library of Congress)    Associate Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Whittaker at his desk in his chambers. (Heywood Davis)  The key links: - Biographies of Charles Evans Whittaker, Felix Frankfurter, and William O. Douglas from Oyez- A biography of Charles Evans Whittaker written by Craig Alan Smith- A biography of Felix Frankfurter written by H.N. Hirsch- A biography of William O. Douglas written by Bruce Allen Murphy- A book about the history of "one person, one vote" written by J. Douglas Smith- A roundtable discussion on C-SPAN about Baker v. Carr The key voices: - Craig Smith, Charles Whittaker's biographer and Professor of History and Political Science at California University of Pennsylvania - Tara Grove, Professor of Law and Robert and Elizabeth Scott Research Professor at William & Mary Law School- Louis Michael Seidman, Carmack Waterhouse Professor of Constitutional Law at Georgetown Law- Guy-Uriel Charles, Charles S. Rhyne Professor of Law at Duke Law- Samuel Issacharoff, Bonnie and Richard Reiss Professor of Constitutional Law, NYU Law- J. Douglas Smith, author of "On Democracy's Doorstep"- Alan Kohn, former Supreme Court clerk for Charles Whittaker, 1957 Term- Kent Whittaker, Charles Whittaker's son- Kate Whittaker, Charles Whittaker's granddaughter The key cases: - 1962: Baker v. Carr- 2000: Bush v. Gore- 2016: Evenwel v. Abbott Music in this episode by Gyan Riley, Alex Overington, David Herman, Tobin Low and Jad Abumrad.  More Perfect is funded in part by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation. Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project in collaboration with the Legal Information Institute at Cornell. Archival interviews with Justice William O. Douglas come from the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University Library. Special thanks to Whittaker's clerks: Heywood Davis, Jerry Libin and James Adler. Also big thanks to Jerry Goldman at Oyez.

This story comes from Radiolab's first ever spin-off podcast, More Perfect. To hear more, subscribe here. When Chief Justice Earl Warren was asked at the end of his career, “What was the most important case of your tenure?”, there were a lot of answers he could have given. After all, he had presided over some of the most important decisions in the court’s history — cases that dealt with segregation in schools, the right to an attorney, the right to remain silent, just to name a few. But his answer was a surprise: He said, “Baker v. Carr,” a 1962 redistricting case.  On this episode of More Perfect, we talk about why this case was so important; important enough, in fact, that it pushed one Supreme Court justice to a nervous breakdown, brought a boiling feud to a head, put one justice in the hospital, and changed the course of the Supreme Court — and the nation — forever. Associate Justice William O. Douglas (L) and Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter (R) (Harris & Ewing Photography/Library of Congress) Top Row (left-right): Charles E. Whittaker, John M. Harlan,William J. Brennan, Jr., Potter Stewart. Bottom Row (left-right): William O. Douglas, Hugo L. Black, Earl Warren, Felix Frankfurter, Tom C. Clark. (Library of Congress) Associate Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Whittaker at his desk in his chambers. (Heywood Davis) Music in this episode by Gyan Riley, Alex Overington, David Herman, Tobin Low and Jad Abumrad.  More Perfect is funded in part by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, The Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation, and the Joyce Foundation. Supreme Court archival audio comes from Oyez®, a free law project in collaboration with the Legal Information Institute at Cornell. Archival interviews with Justice William O. Douglas come from the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University Library. Special thanks to Whittaker's clerks: Heywood Davis, Jerry Libin and James Adler. Also big thanks to Jerry Goldman at Oyez.  

The Kishnev Pogrom in 1903, according to Prof. Monty Penkower, sparked a wave of emigration to the "Land of Promise", America, and the "Promise land", Israel. This lecture discusses how Jews forged and dealt with their identity, whether it was their religious, cultural, and political identity, once they immigrated to America and what was then Palestine. Prof. Penkower uses various examples such as Hayim Nahman Bialik, Abraham Selmanovitz, Haim Arlosoroff, Felix Frankfurter, Arthur Sulzberger to illustrate the complexities of their struggle and the struggle of others with Jewish identity in the 20th century.

Suffolk University, Suffolk University Law School, Boston, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Supreme Court, Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter, William Douglas, Robert Jackson, Associate Justices, Modern Constitution, Substantive Law, New Deal Court, Four Great Justices