ROBERTS, OWEN JOSEPHUS

Owen Josephus Roberts served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for fifteen years. His years on the Court included the new deal era when the federal government, under the leadership of President franklin d. roosevelt, expanded its regulation of the economy in an effort to address the effects of the Great Depression. Roberts cast the deciding vote in a major case that marked a shift in the Court's approach to such regulation.

Roberts was born on May 2, 1875, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, where he spent much of his childhood. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in 1895 and a bachelor of laws degree in 1898. In 1898 Roberts established a law practice in Philadelphia, becoming the first district attorney for Philadelphia County. Roberts also taught for twenty years at the University of Pennsylvania, serving as a law professor from 1898 to 1918. In 1924 President calvin coolidge named Roberts special attorney for the prosecution in the teapot dome scandal, which involved unethical behavior in the oil industry. In 1930 President herbert hoover appointed Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court.

"The judicial branch … has only one duty—to lay the article of the Constitution which is invoked beside the statute which is challenged and to decide whether the latter squares with the former."
—Owen Josephus Roberts

Roberts's tenure on the Supreme Court is largely remembered for the decisive fifth vote he cast in west coast hotel v. parrish, 300 U.S. 379, 57 S. Ct. 578, 81 L. Ed. 703 (1937), which upheld the constitutionality of a Washington state minimum wage law. The Court's decision in West Coast Hotel brought an end to the Lochner Era in constitutional law, named after the case lochner v. new york, 198 U.S. 45, 25 S. Ct. 539, 49 L. Ed. 937 (1905). In Lochner the Court struck down a New York law regulating the number of hours that employees could work each week in the baking industry because it violated the free market principles embodied in the doctrine of substantive due process, a doctrine derived from the due process clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

For three decades after Lochner, the Court invalidated numerous state and federal laws regulating businesses, including laws that prescribed certain terms and conditions of employment. After West Coast Hotel, the Court adopted a more permissive stance toward such laws, permitting both the state and federal governments to pass reasonable business regulations that benefit society. Roberts's vote to uphold the state minimum wage law in West Coast Hotel is memorable not only because it was the decisive vote in a landmark case but also because he had previously voted to strike down similar regulations on a number of occasions.

Roberts's change of heart has been characterized as "the switch in time that saved nine," suggesting that Roberts cast his vote to defeat President Roosevelt's court-packing plan. To dilute the voting power of the existing nine justices on the Supreme Court, who had been striking down much New Deal legislation, Roosevelt had proposed to expand the number of justices, a move that would enable him to add justices more favorable to his New Deal objectives. Historians disagree, however, over whether Roberts had knowledge of Roosevelt's plan at the time he cast his vote. Additionally, Roberts had previously voted in favor of state legislation that had been enacted to address the worst effects of the Great Depression, much like some of the New Deal legislation Congress had passed at the federal level. For example, in Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 54 S. Ct. 231, 78 L. Ed. 413 (1934), Roberts joined four other justices in upholding a Minnesota law that placed a moratorium on the foreclosure of mortgages.

Roberts's constitutional jurisprudence is difficult to categorize and was somewhat unpredictable. In Grovey v. Townsend, 295 U.S. 45, 55 S. Ct. 622, 79 L. Ed. 1292 (1935), for example, Roberts wrote for a unanimous Court in upholding the constitutionality of white primaries, which denied African Americans the right to elect party delegates for the national convention. Three years later, in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337, 59 S. Ct. 232, 83 L. Ed. 208 (1938), Roberts concurred with a majority of justices who relied on the equal protection clause to invalidate a state statute authorizing the University of Missouri to exclude blacks from its law school.

Although Roberts upheld white primaries in Grovey, he supported racial minorities in korematsu v. united states, 323 U.S. 214, 65 S. Ct. 193, 89 L. Ed. 194 (1944). In Korematsu the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of an executive order authorizing the forcible detention of more than a hundred thousand Americans of Japanese descent during world war ii. Roberts dissented, attacking the rationale underlying the executive order, which ostensibly had been promulgated for the purpose of

protecting the United States from risks of sabotage. Roberts argued that forcible detention was really just a euphemism for imprisonment and that Japanese Americans were being punished solely on the grounds of their ancestry "without evidence or inquiry concerning [their] loyalty and good disposition towards the United States." In this light Roberts concluded that the record revealed a clear constitutional violation.

Roberts retired from the Supreme Court in 1945. He then returned to the University of Pennsylvania where he served as dean of the law school from 1948 to 1951. Three years later, on May 17, 1955, Roberts suffered a heart attack and died at his Pennsylvania farm in West Vincent Township.

further readings

Abraham, Henry. 1982. Freedom and the Court. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

White, G. Edward. 1988. The American Judicial Tradition. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.

cross-references

Japanese American Evacuation Cases; Roosevelt, Franklin Delano "FDR's Court Packing Plan" (Sidebar).

Roberts, Owen Josephus (b. Germantown, Pa., 2 May 1875; d. West Vincent Township, Chester County, Pa., 17 May 1955; interred St. Andrews Cemetery, West Vincent Township); associate justice, 1930–1945. Educated at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his law degree in 1898, Owen Roberts worked first as a private attorney and then as assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. He taught law part time at the University of Pennsylvania until 1919. In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge named Roberts a special U.S. attorney in the Teapot Dome Scandals. When Herbert Hoover's initial choice for a 1930 Supreme Court vacancy, John J. Parker of North Carolina, failed to get Senate confirmation (see Nominees, Rejection of), Hoover nominated Roberts, who took the seat in June.

Roberts joined a conservative Depression‐era Court identified with entrepreneurial liberty and skeptical of government regulation of business. On a Court deeply divided by new appointments (Charles Evans Hughes and Benjamin Cardozo), Roberts's vote was pivotal in the struggle between Franklin Roosevelt and the Court.

Roberts's opinions reviewed the constitutional challenges of the New Deal in a way that puzzled Court critics, who could find no consistent jurisprudential principle in his rulings. In Nebbia v. New York (1934), Roberts upheld state regulation of business—in this case a New York statute regulating milk prices (see State Regulation of Commerce). As conservative opposition to New Deal legislation intensified, the Court's attitude toward federal economic regulation hardened. Roberts joined the majority in Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan (1935) to invalidate section 9c of the National Industrial Recovery Act; his opinion in Retirement Board v. Alton Railroad Co. (1935) struck down the Railroad Retirement Pension Act; a unanimous Court held the entire National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935); Louisville Bank v. Radford (1935) voided the Federal Farm Bankruptcy Act of 1934. One of Roberts's most far‐reaching opinions came in a 6‐to‐3 ruling that overturned the first Agricultural Adjustment Act (U.S. v. Butler, 1936). In Carter v. Carter Coal Co. (1936), Roberts joined the majority that invalidated the Bituminous Coal Act of 1935 as a federal intrusion upon matters reserved to the states.

The Court's persistent opposition to New Deal legislation led to the 1937 battle over Roosevelt's court‐packing plan. Partly as a response to the criticism directed at the Court, Roberts softened his attitude toward the New Deal. In 1937 Roberts joined the majority in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish in upholding a state minimum wage law (a conclusion Roberts reached before the Court reorganization was announced). The Court also sustained the Farm Mortgage Act of 1935, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, and the Social Security Act of 1935. In each case Roberts voted with the majority to sustain New Deal legislation.

As the Court in the 1930s increasingly turned its attention to civil liberties, Roberts again walked an unpredictable path. He wrote the Court's unanimous opinions that upheld the constitutionality of the white primary (Grovey v. Townsend, 1935) and dissented in 1944 when that holding was overturned 8 to 1 in Smith v. Allwright. Roberts's 1940 opinion in Cantwell v. Connecticut reversed a Jehovah's Witness's conviction for soliciting contributions without a permit. He also voted with the majority to uphold a flag‐salute requirement in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940). Three years later, the Court reversed itself in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, but Roberts adhered to Gobitis. In Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938), the Court invalidated exclusion of African‐American students from the state's law school as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and Roberts voted with the majority. Finally, in Korematsu v. United States (1944), Roberts dissented powerfully in the constitutional test of the forced relocation of Japanese‐Americans during World War II. He insisted that the West Coast exclusion orders were a “case of convicting a citizen as punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, … solely because of his ancestry” (p. 226).

While a sitting justice, Roberts chaired an inquiry into the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (see Extrajudicial Activities). The committee exonerated the Roosevelt administration and placed responsibility on the military commanders at Pearl Harbor. After his retirement from the Court in 1945, Roberts served as dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1948–1951) and chaired the Security Board of the Atomic Energy Commission. He died of a heart attack in 1955, shortly after his eightieth birthday.

Bibliography

G. Edward White , The American Judicial Tradition: Profiles of Leading American Judges (1976).
Elder Witt , Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court, 2d ed. (1990).

Augustus M. Burns III

Owen Josephus Roberts 1875–1955, associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1930–45), b. Philadelphia. After receiving (1898) his law degree from the Univ. of Pennsylvania, he practiced law in Philadelphia, taught (1898–1918) at the Univ. of Pennsylvania, and served as assistant district attorney (1901–4) of Philadelphia co. During World War I he was appointed by the U.S. Attorney General to prosecute cases involving espionage, and he became nationally known as a prosecuting attorney in the Teapot Dome scandal (1924). Appointed (1930) to the Supreme Court by President Hoover, Roberts faced with other justices the problems of legislation for a depression economy. After 1935 he allied himself with the conservative group, but later he supported New Deal legislation. He was appointed to investigate the Pearl Harbor disaster. After he resigned from the Supreme Court, he was (1948–51) dean of the Univ. of Pennsylvania law school. He wrote The Court and the Constitution (1951).

Bibliography: See study by C. A. Leonard (1971).