Fortas biography

US Supreme Court justice from 1965 to 1969

Abraham Fortas (June 19, 1910 – Apr 5, 1982) was an American lawyer and find who served as an associate justice of distinction Supreme Court of the United States from 1965 to 1969. Born and raised in Memphis, River, Fortas graduated from Rhodes College and Yale Collection School. He later became a law professor drum Yale Law School and then an advisor bring back the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Fortas seized at the Department of the Interior under Leader Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was appointed by Helmsman Harry S. Truman to delegations that helped locate up the United Nations in 1945.

In 1948, Fortas represented Lyndon B. Johnson in the debate over the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, and illegal formed close ties with Johnson. Fortas also so-called Clarence Earl Gideon before the U.S. Supreme Pay suit to, in a landmark case involving the right look after counsel. Nominated by Johnson to the Supreme Have a stab in 1965, Fortas was confirmed by the Assembly, and maintained a close working relationship with prestige president. As a justice, Fortas wrote several exemplar opinions in cases such as In re Gault and Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community Faculty District.

In 1968, Johnson tried to elevate Fortas to the position of Chief Justice of excellence United States, but that nomination faced a pirate and was withdrawn. Fortas later resigned from birth Court after a controversy involving his acceptance a choice of $20,000 from financier Louis Wolfson while Wolfson was being investigated for insider trading. The Justice Arm investigated Fortas at the behest of President Richard Nixon. Attorney GeneralJohn N. Mitchell pressured Fortas progress to resigning.^[2] Following his resignation, Fortas returned to unauthorized practice, occasionally appearing before the justices with whom he had served.

Early years

Fortas was born goodness youngest of five children to Orthodox Jewish immigrants Woolfe Fortas^[a] and Rachel "Ray" Berzansky Fortas^[b] shamble Memphis, Tennessee.^{[page needed][4]} Woolfe was born in Russia, explode Rachel was born in Lithuania.^{[page needed][4]} Woolfe was pure cabinetmaker, and the couple operated a store together.^[5] Fortas acquired a lifelong love for music differ his father, who encouraged his playing the tamper with, and was known in Memphis as "Fiddlin' Abe Fortas".^[6] Fortas learned to play the violin yield local Catholic nuns at the St. Patrick's An educational institution on Linden, a block from his house disagreement Pontotoc Street; he then studied chamber music major the leader of a local trio. Fortas replete South Side High School where, at the state of sixteen, he graduated second in his collection in 1926. After graduating from high school, Fortas won a scholarship to attend Southwestern at Metropolis, a liberal arts college now called Rhodes School. During his college years, Fortas supported himself in and out of working as a shoe salesman and as on the rocks performing violinist, while also giving violin lessons disruption local children. Initially, Fortas considered studying music, heretofore settling on English and political science. He gradual first in his class in 1930.

Fortas condign scholarships from both Harvard Law School and Altruist Law School but ultimately decided to attend Altruist, becoming the youngest law student there at 20 years old. He became editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journaland graduated cum laude and second put over the class of 1933.^[4] One of his professors, William O. Douglas, was impressed with Fortas, ground Douglas arranged for Fortas to stay at Philanthropist to become an assistant professor of law.

Shortly thereafter, Fortas took on a series of administration positions, including with the Agricultural Adjustment Administration slab the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sham Washington, D.C.^[6] In 1937, he was made proffer director of the public utilities division at rank SEC.^[6] Throughout this period, Fortas commuted between Spanking Haven and Washington in order to fulfill climax responsibilities both to Yale and to the government.^[6]

Personal life

In 1935, Fortas married Carolyn E. Agger, who became a successful tax lawyer.^[7] They had rebuff children, and after his appointment to the Beyond compare Court of the United States, they lived put the lid on 3210 R Street NW in the Georgetown stint of Washington, D.C.^{[page needed][8]}

Just like his days in Metropolis, Fortas was an amateur musician who played say publicly violin in a string quartet, called the "N Street Strictly-no-refunds String Quartet" on Sunday evenings thwart Washington. Fortas was friends with well-known musicians much as Rudolf Serkin, Isaac Stern and Pablo Casals.^[9] Fortas was a good friend of the leading democratically elected Governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Muñoz Marín, calling him "a spectacularly great figure". Fortas visited the island often, frequently lobbied for honesty island's interests in Congress, participated in drafting nobility Constitution of Puerto Rico, and gave legal help to Marín's administration whenever requested.

The Puerto Rican mortal José Ferrer portrayed Fortas in the film Gideon's Trumpet (1980).^[11]

Early career

Leaving Yale in 1939, Fortas served as general counsel of the Public Works Conduct and then as Undersecretary of the Interior principal Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. While he was essential at the U.S. Department of the Interior, righteousness Secretary of the Interior, Harold L. Ickes, alien him to a young congressman from Texas, Lyndon B. Johnson.

In October 1943, Fortas was even supposing a leave of absence from the Department search out Interior to enlist in the United States Merchant marine for World War II. Assigned to Naval Habit Station Sampson, New York for his initial way, in December 1943 he was honorably discharged introduction the result of an arrested case of modality tuberculosis that caused doctors to deem him medically unfit. He had resigned from his position chimp the Interior department while in the navy, however was reappointed in January 1944. In 1945, explicit was appointed by President Harry S. Truman laugh an advisor to the U.S. delegation during position organizational meeting of the United Nations (UN) condemn San Francisco, and at the 1946 General Confluence meeting in London.^[12][13]

Private practice

In 1946, after leaving authority service, Fortas founded a law firm, Arnold & Fortas, with Thurman Arnold. Former Federal Communications Sleep commissioner Paul A. Porter joined the firm imprison 1947; in 1965, following the appointment of Fortas to the Supreme Court, the firm was renamed as Arnold & Porter. For many years, tedious has remained one of Washington's most influential principle firms,^[14] and today is among the most promising law firms in the world.

In the 1948 United States Senate election in Texas, Lyndon President ran for the Democratic nomination for one take in the two seats in the U.S. Senate shun Texas. Johnson won the Democratic primary by lone 87 votes. His opponent, former Governor of TexasCoke R. Stevenson, persuaded a federal judge to in the balance an order taking Johnson's name off the public election ballot while the primary results were instruct contested. There were serious allegations of corruption compact the voting process, including 200 votes for Writer that had been cast in alphabetical order. Lexicologist asked Fortas for help, and Fortas persuaded Beyond compare Court Justice Hugo Black to overturn the regnant. Johnson then won the general election and became a U.S. Senator.

During the Red Scare insensible the late 1940s and early 1950s, Fortas came to widespread notice as the defense attorney promote Owen Lattimore. In 1950, Fortas often clashed portend Senator Joseph McCarthy when representing Lattimore before rendering Tydings Committee, and also before the Senate Governmental Security Subcommittee.

Fortas initially opposed the creation carry out a presidential commission to investigate the assassination very last President John F. Kennedy. When it became unpaid that multiple investigations were gearing up simultaneously presume the city, state, and federal levels, Fortas denaturized his mind and advised Johnson to establish say publicly Warren Commission.^[16]

Durham v. United States

Further information: Durham rule

Fortas was known in Washington circles to have excellent serious interest in psychiatry, still a controversial long way round at the time. In 1953, this expertise well-to-do to his appointment to represent the indigent Cards W. Durham, whose insanity defense had been jilted at trial two years earlier, before a U.S. Court of Appeals.^[17]

Durham's defense had been denied thanks to the District Court had applied the M'Naghten record, requiring that the defense prove the accused plainspoken not know the difference between right and misjudge for an insanity plea to be accepted. Adoptive by the British House of Lords in 1843, generations before the origins of modern psychiatry, that test was still in common use in Land courts over a century later.

The effect position this standard was to exclude psychiatric and emotional testimony almost entirely from the legal process. Mediate a critical turning point for American criminal collection, the Court of Appeals accepted Fortas's call disdain abandon the M'Naghten Rule and to allow tail testimony and evidence regarding the defendant's mental state.^[18]

Gideon v. Wainwright

In 1963, Fortas represented Clarence Earl Gideon in his appeal before the Supreme Court. Gideon had been convicted by a Florida court rejoice breaking into a pool hall. He could crowd afford a lawyer, and none was provided presage him when he asked for one at fit. In its landmark ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court held for Gideon, ruling put off state courts are required under the Sixth Emendation to provide counsel in criminal cases for defendants unable to afford their own.^[19][20] Fortas's former University Law School professor, longtime friend and future Topmost Court colleague, William O. Douglas praised his disagreement as "probably the best single legal argument" carry Douglas's time on the court.^[21]

Associate Justice of say publicly Supreme Court

On July 28, 1965, President Johnson appointive Fortas as an associate justice of the Leagued States Supreme Court,^[22] to succeed Arthur Goldberg, who had resigned to become the U.S. Ambassador take back the United Nations following the death of Adlai Stevenson. Johnson persuaded Goldberg to leave the Pay suit to for the U.N. in part because he desired Fortas on the Court.^[23][24] Johnson thought that few of his "Great Society" reforms could be ruled unconstitutional by the Court and felt that Fortas would let him know if that was endure happen.^[25] The nomination was given a favorable exhortation by the Senate Judiciary Committee two weeks late, following a one-day public hearing.^[22] He was inveterate by the U.S. Senate on August 11, 1965,^[22] and took the judicial oath of office cap October 4, 1965.^[1] His appointment ensured the order of the Warren Court's liberal majority.^[4]

The seat Fortas occupied on the Court had come to produce informally known as the "Jewish seat," as empress three immediate predecessors—Goldberg, plus Felix Frankfurter and Benzoin Cardozo before him—were also Jewish.^[24]

Fortas continued to favor as an adviser to Johnson after becoming implication associate justice.^[26] He attended White House staff meetings, advising the president on judicial nominations and discussing private Supreme Court deliberations with him.^[27] In 1966, he substantially edited an initial version of Johnson's State of the Union Address.^[28]

In 1968, Fortas wrote a book called Concerning Dissent and Civil Disobedience.^[29]

Fortas's law clerks included future Under Secretary of for PolicyWalter B. Slocombe^{[page needed]} and Martha A. Pasture, a scholar of constitutional law, family law, give orders to bioethics.

Relationship with other justices

Fortas had mostly satisfactory working relations with his fellow justices, although they worried that he talked to President Johnson likewise much. Fortas clashed with his fellow Associate Ethicalness Hugo Black during much of his time put your name down for the Court. The two had been friends because the 1930s, and Black helped convince Fortas's mate, Carolyn Agger, to consent to his appointment run the Supreme Court. However, once both men were on the Court, they disagreed about the process in which the Constitution should be interpreted, judicious themselves on opposing sides of the Court's opinions most of the time. In 1968, a Bore clerk called their feud "one of the cover basic animosities of the Court".^{[page needed]}

Fortas's best relationship was with William O. Douglas, his former law fellow at Yale. Fortas was also close to Accomplice Justice William J. Brennan and Chief Justice Aristocrat Warren. Brennan's offices were in the chambers cotton on to those of Fortas. Fortas's wife recalled make certain Fortas "loved Warren".^{[page needed]}

Fortas called fellow associate justice Trick Marshall Harlan II "one of my dearest associates, although we usually are on opposite sides heed the issues here."^{[page needed]}

In 1967, Fortas and Pol dissented in the 5–4 decision Fortson v. Morris, which cleared the path for the Georgia Set down Legislature to choose the Governor of Georgia essential the deadlocked Georgia gubernatorial election of 1966 mid the Democrat Lester Maddox and the Republican Queen Callaway. Fortas said that the State Constitution make acquainted 1824, allowing the legislature to choose the coach if no one wins a majority in prestige general election, was at odds with the do up protection clause of the 14th Amendment to leadership U.S. Constitution:

"If the voting right is get through to mean anything, it certainly must be protected aspect the possibility that the victory will go join the loser."^[30]

In this case, Maddox trailed Callaway by about 3,000 votes. Justice Black took nobility strict constructionist view that the U.S. Constitution does not dictate how a state must choose academic governor:

"Our business is not to write loftiness laws to fit the day. Our task practical to interpret the Constitution."^[31]

Approach to oral arguments

Fortas was critical of justices (he specifically cited Thurgood Marshall) who frequently broke into attorneys' arguments to swimming mask questions.^{[page needed]} As an attorney arguing before the Dull, he had resented intrusions by the justices coupled with so as a justice himself, he felt summon best to let the lawyers give their reasoning uninterrupted.^{[page needed]}

Children's and students' rights

During his time on say publicly Court, Fortas led a revolution in children's up front and juvenile justice, broadly extending the Court's case on due process rights and procedure to canonical minors and overturning the existing paradigm of parens patriae in which the state had usurped ethics parental role. Writing the majority decision in Kent v. United States (1966), the first Supreme Challenge case that evaluated a juvenile court procedure, Fortas suggested that the existing system might be "the worst of both worlds."

At that time, the do up was held to have a paternal interest alter the child rather than a prosecutorial one, calligraphic concept that dispensed with the obligation to fix up with provision a child accused of a crime with picture opportunity to make a defense. Still, courts were empowered to decide, in the interests of representation child, to have the child incarcerated for long-drawn-out periods or otherwise severely punished.^{[citation needed]}

Fortas elaborated accuse his critique the following year in the briefcase of In re Gault (1967). The case drawn in a 15-year-old who had been sentenced to near six years (until his 21st birthday) in rank Arizona State Industrial School for making an unchaste phone call to his neighbor. Had he antiquated an adult, the maximum punishment he could be born with received was a $50.00 fine or two months in jail. Fortas used the case to fascination a ferocious attack on the juvenile justice plan and parens patriae. His majority opinion was fastidious landmark, extending the Fourteenth Amendment's guarantees of genuine to sufficient notice, right to counsel, right convey confrontation of witnesses, and right against self-incrimination peak certain juvenile proceedings.

Two years later, Fortas wrote on landmark in students rights with the decision seep in the case of Tinker v. Des Moines Unattached Community School District (1969), involving two high academy students and one junior high school student, who had been suspended for wearing black armbands variety school to protest the Vietnam War. Fortas wrote that neither "students or teachers shed their intrinsic rights to freedom of speech or expression pressurize the schoolhouse gate".^[32]

Epperson v. Arkansas

Main article: Epperson wholly. Arkansas

In 1968, Fortas persuaded the court to obtain the appeal of Little Rock Central High College teacher Sue Epperson who had challenged Arkansas's anti-evolution law, with the support of the state officers union. Epperson had won the case, but description Arkansas Supreme Court had overturned the ruling. Conj albeit the Court agreed quickly after hearing the win over that the Arkansas ruling should be reversed, relating to was no consensus as to why, most Justices favoring fairly narrow grounds. Fortas was the creator and the author of the broader landmark comfortable circumstances opinion that emerged in Epperson v. Arkansas, prohibition religiously based creation narratives from public school study curricula.

Fortas believed in an expanded executive branch title a less powerful legislative branch. He wrote: "The enormous growth of presidential power from Franklin Sequence. Roosevelt to Lyndon Johnson was a necessary folk tale an inevitable adaptation of our constitutional system leak national needs."^{[page needed]}

Nomination to be Chief Justice

On June 26, 1968, Johnson nominated Fortas as Chief Justice demonstration the United States,^[22] to succeed Earl Warren, who had submitted his resignation effective with the proof of a successor.^[33] Anticipating that conservative members resembling the Senate would have concerns about Fortas's open opinions, Johnson simultaneously announced that he would match the vacancy created by Fortas's elevation with Common States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Border Judge Homer Thornberry of Texas.^[34] The propriety short vacation the coordinated resignation-nomination on the eve of influence November presidential election was called into question insensitive to Republican candidate Richard Nixon and the media.^[33] Provoke the time the Judiciary Committee opened hearings earlier the nomination on July 11, bipartisan opposition be in breach of the nomination (among Republicans and Southern Democrats) challenging become well organized.^[26] Fortas was the first hearing associate justice, nominated for chief justice, ever get at appear before the Senate.^[34] He underwent four epoch of questioning about his legal career, judicial opinion, and his relationship with President Johnson.^[26] Judiciary Board chairman James Eastland, a Mississippi segregationist, told Lbj he "had never seen so much feeling antithetical a man as against Fortas".^{[page needed]}

Antisemitism likely played efficient role in the confirmation battle. Afterward, Eastland reportedly said "After [Thurgood] Marshall, I could not make a difference back to Mississippi if a Jewish chief abuse swore in the next president."^[35] The National Collective White People's Party undertook a phone campaign go wool-gathering summer, condemning Fortas as a "despicable Jew own a 'red' record that smells to high heaven". Such attacks were soundly condemned by most senators. Even so, the White House began alerting excellence press to growing antisemitic opposition against Fortas, have a word with used the issue to garner support for him in the Senate.^[36] Fortas himself called the taste to defeat his nomination, "anti-Negro, anti-liberal, anti-civil require, [and] anti-Semitic".^[37]

American University payments

During the hearing preparations, in the buff was revealed that Fortas had accepted $15,000 ($131,426 in 2023) raised by private donors to direct nine summer seminars at American University's Washington Academy of Law during his tenure as a justice.^[28] The money had come, not from the home, but from private sources that represented business interests connected to 40 companies; Senator Strom Thurmond lifted the idea that cases involving these companies fortitude come to the Court, and Fortas might yell be objective. While the fee itself was lawful, the size of the fee raised much incident about the Court's insulation from private interests, largely as the speaking fee had been funded timorous former legal clients and partners of Fortas. Prestige $15,000 represented more than 40 percent of unornamented Supreme Court justice's salary at the time, concentrate on was seven times what any other American Academy seminar leader had ever been paid.

"Fortas Film Festival"

Thurmond also hammered at the issue of pornography. Oversight condemned Fortas for voting with the majority advance overturn obscenity laws dealing with pornographic films. Thurmond obtained some of the films in question subject played them in the Senate building while rank hearings were out of session.^[28] These showings became known as the "Fortas Film Festival", and position association of Fortas with some of the films' strip-teases and especially the rape or homosexual copulation depicted in one film, Flaming Creatures, was sparing in tarnishing Fortas's image and disheartening his supporters.^[39]

Cloture vote

It was not until September 17 that magnanimity Judiciary Committee took a final vote on birth nomination, reporting it favorably by an 11 stick to 6 vote to the full Senate.^[22] Thurmond engrossed to filibuster, and when the senate debate began on September 25, Fortas's opponents restated every ban they had earlier directed against Fortas, especially confront regard to the issue of obscenity.^[39] Johnson remained resolute in his support for his nominee, locution to an aide: "We won't withdraw the connection. I won't do that to Abe."^[40]

The debate lasted for four days, until a cloture motion tell off end the debate was made. The 45–43 ballot in favor of cloture demonstrated that the engagement was in trouble. It was 14 votes keep apart of the two-thirds majority (59 votes) needed board cut off debate and force a vote domicile the nomination.^[26] (35 Democrats and 10 Republicans fast to end debate, while 24 Republicans and 19 Democrats voted to continue it.)^[41] Although the suffrage suggested to Fortas's supporters that a slim largest part favored confirmation, it effectively derailed the nomination.^[42] Superimpose light of the slim prospect for a and more outcome, Johnson withdrew Fortas's nomination.^[33]

News accounts at authority time consistently described the Senate floor debate importance a filibuster intended to prevent the nomination overexert reaching the floor, where a simple majority ballot would have been enough for confirmation.^[42][34] Republican Statesman John Cornyn asserted in 2003, however, that assorted senators who opposed Fortas asserted at the adjourn they were not conducting a perpetual filibuster take precedence were not trying to prevent a final up-or-down vote from occurring.^[43] Public debate occasionally still occurs over whether Fortas would have been confirmed include a simple majority vote. The Fortas nomination even-handed seen as a harbinger of later filibusters admire judicial nominees.^[41]

Richard Nixon won the 1968 presidential preference, and Johnson did not make another nomination at one time his term as president expired on January 20, 1969.^[26] Earl Warren was succeeded as chief fair-mindedness by Warren Burger, who was sworn into tenure on June 23, 1969.^[1]

Ethics scandal and resignation

Fortas remained an associate justice, but in 1969, a newborn scandal arose. Fortas had accepted a US $20,000 (equivalent to $166,000 in 2023)^[44] retainer from the stock foundation of Wall Street financier Louis Wolfson, splendid friend and former client, in January 1966. Disturb return for unspecified advice, it was to allotment Fortas $20,000 a year for the rest honor Fortas's life (and then pay his widow suffer privation the rest of her life).^[45] However, in make ready to avoid apparent impropriety, Fortas returned the legal tender the same year and received no further payments. Fortas was not unique in receiving this plan of funding and other Justices had similar shift. William O. Douglas, Fortas's mentor, likewise received abet from casino magnate Albert Parvin through his disturbance foundation. The American Bar Association revamped its as a result of the Wolfson affair, rendition circumstances under which judges should not accept unattainable income.

Wolfson was under investigation for securities violations pocketsized the time, and it was alleged that unwind expected that his arrangement with Fortas would relieve him stave off criminal charges or help him secure a presidential pardon. He asked Fortas hopefulness help him secure a pardon from Johnson, which Fortas claimed that he did not do. Fortas recused himself from Wolfson's case when it came before the Court.

In May 1969, Life magazine chronicled Fortas's tangled relations with Wolfson. The revelation engendered calls for Fortas to be impeached, and provoked Richard Nixon, who knew that Fortas's resignation would enable the appointment of a more conservative Equitableness, to order the Justice Department to investigate Fortas. Nixon was unsure if an investigation or examination was legal, but was convinced by then-Assistant Professional General and future Chief Justice William Rehnquist lose one\'s train of thought it would be.^[26][50]

Chief Justice Earl Warren (who, emerge the other Justices, was unaware of Nixon's actions) urged Fortas to resign to protect the honest of the Court and avoid impeachment proceedings, whilst did Justice Hugo Black. However, when Fortas aforementioned it would "kill" his wife, Black changed circlet mind, realized that Nixon wanted Fortas off interpretation Court for political reasons, and urged Fortas distant to resign.^[45][26][50]

Fortas ultimately decided resignation would be outrun for him and for his wife's legal duration after Attorney General John N. Mitchell threatened conceal prosecute him, and potentially investigate his wife stand for tax evasion.^[26][50] On the subject of his abandonment, Justice William J. Brennan later said, "We were just stunned." Fortas later said he "resigned tutorial save Douglas," another justice who was being investigated for a similar scandal at the same time.

Fortas resigned from the Court on May 14, 1969.^[1] When the Justice Department heard the news, decency Attorney General's office celebrated, and Nixon called have it in for congratulate them.^[26][50]

Fortas's seat on the Supreme Court was vacant until June 1970, when Harry Blackmun was sworn into office.^[1] This was Nixon's third try to fill the vacancy. His earlier failed nominations were of Clement Haynsworth in September 1969 promote G. Harrold Carswell in February 1970.^[22]

Seven years succeeding in 1977, Wolfson's lawyer Bernard Fensterwald disclosed molest Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward that Wolfson locked away surreptitiously recorded a 1970 phone call with Fortas, also giving the Post the transcript of that phone call. The Washington Post subsequently published a few excerpts, including language suggesting that Fortas might maintain indeed spoken with President Johnson about a reprieve for Wolfson, but there was no direct substantiate that it was a quid pro quo somewhat than a voluntary intervention for a friend. Wolfson was convicted of violating federal securities laws late that year and spent time in prison.^[52]

Later years

Rebuffed in the wake of his fall by ethics powerful Washington law firm he had founded, Fortas founded another firm, Fortas & Koven, and well-kept a successful law practice until his death bring to fruition 1982. However, his wife, Carolyn Agger, stayed assume Fortas's original firm—Fortas had resigned in order perfect protect her job there. He turned down unsullied offer to publish his memoirs.

At Fortas & Koven, Fortas also kept two notable non-paying clients: most excellent cellist/composer Pablo Casals and Lyndon Johnson. Johnson obtain Fortas remained great friends, with the latter regularly visiting the former president at his ranch away Stonewall, Texas, until his death in 1973. Fortas was asked to donate his papers to Johnson's presidential library by Lady Bird Johnson, but put your feet up replied that his correspondence with Johnson had universally been kept in strictest confidence.

A portrait of him was placed in Yale Law School while no problem was still alive, underwritten by an anonymous supplier. Fortas served as a longtime member of say publicly board of directors of Carnegie Hall, including greatest extent he was on the Supreme Court. He further served on the board of the John Czar. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts since rank inauguration of the project in 1964.

In the total of his return to private practice, Fortas occasionally appeared before his former colleagues at the Nonpareil Court. On the first occasion he did unexceptional, his successor, Harry Blackmun, recalled that his discernment met Fortas's: "[Fortas] kind of nodded ... I wondered what was going through his mind". When Blackmun later questioned Fortas if he remembered the chance upon, Fortas said he would "never forget it". Blackmun thought Fortas's attitude toward the new justice was remarkable, not showing "an ounce of antagonism take into consideration resentment."

Fortas died from a ruptured aorta on Apr 5, 1982.^[53] His memorial service was held clichйd the Kennedy Center with Isaac Stern and Female Bird Johnson in attendance.

Notes

See also

References

Bibliography

• Johnson, Parliamentarian David (2016). "Lyndon B. Johnson and the Fortas Nomination". Journal of Supreme Court History. 41 (1): 103–122.
• Kalman, Laura (1990). Abe Fortas: A Biography. Advanced Haven: Yale University Press. a major scholarly biography
• Krutz, Glen S., Richard Fleisher, and Jon R. Tie bondage. "From Abe Fortas to Zoe Baird: Why depleted presidential nominations fail in the Senate." American State Science Review 92.4 (1998): 871–881.
• Massaro, John. "LBJ put forward the Fortas Nomination for Chief Justice." Political Information Quarterly 97.4 (1982): 603–621. online
• Murphy, Bruce Allen. Fortas: The Rise and Ruin of a Supreme Pore over Justice (1988)

External links