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Name:
Potter Stewart
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Dates:
Born: January 23, 1915 in Jackson, Michigan
Died: December 7, 1985 in Hanover, New Hampshire
Yale Law: 1941
Nominated by President Dwight Eisenhower: October 14, 1958
Associate Justice: 1958 - July 3, 1981
Biography:
Potter Stewart's nomination to the Surpeme Court was opposed by some southern
Senators because one of the few constitutional decisions he made while sitting on
the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals involved segregation, but this opposition failed
to reach any critical mass and in the end he was easily confirmed.
Stewart's judicial philosophy and Court decisions are difficult to characterize. He was a moderate on a Court evenly divided between conservatives and liberals; thus, he was often a swing vote, sometimes voting with one group and sometimes voting with another. He sometimes voted in support of civil liberties but other times voted against - his record on such matters is almost evenly split, just like the Court was.
Also Known As: none
Alternate Spellings: none
Common Misspellings: none
Related Resources:
What are Political and Legal Philosophy
The Philosophy of Politics and the Philosophy of Law are often studied separately, but they are presented here jointly because they both come back to the same thing: the study of force. Politics is the study of political force in the general community, while jurisprudence is the study of how laws can and should be used to achieve political and social goals.What is Philosophy?
What is philosophy? Is there any point in studying philosophy, or is it a useless subject? What are the different branches of philosophy - what's the difference between aestheitcs and ethics? What's the difference between metaphysics and epistemology?
