Felix Frankfurter

Born November 15, 1882 (Vienna, Austria) Died February 22, 1965 (Washington, D.C.)

Supreme Court justice

Felix Frankfurter was one of America's more powerful people in the legal profession who sought increased protection for criminal defendants in the early twentieth century. As a Supreme Court justice, he was a major force behind the creation and validation of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's (1892–1945; served 1933–45) New Deal legislation. The New Deal was a collection of federal programs created in the 1930s to assist those most affected by the economic hardships of the Great Depression (1929–41).

"It is a fair summary of history to say that the safeguards of liberty have been forged in controversies involving not very nice people."

As a legal scholar, Frankfurter was keenly interested in politics, and as a political progressive (one who seeks social reform though government action) he looked to create new legal means of tackling problems. He worked to expand the concept of equal protection under the laws for all, including those in the criminal justice system. Serving on the U.S. Supreme Court from 1939 to 1962, he and his colleagues were on the bench throughout the difficult years of the 1950s as racial segregation was challenged in the courts and brought an end to racially segregated public schools in America.

Coming to America

Felix Frankfurter was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1882. He was the third of six children born to Emma and Leopold Frankfurter. Leopold was an unsuccessful Jewish merchant and in 1893 he set sail for America to search for greater economic opportunity and to escape Vienna's rising anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews).

Emma Frankfurter and her six children arrived at Ellis Island in New York one year later aboard the Marsala. Felix did not speak a word of English when he began school at PS25 (Public School 25) on Fifth Street in New York City at the age of twelve. Emma was the dominant influence in Felix's life and she encouraged him to succeed as a scholar. He was an eager student who eagerly read books on literature, politics, and history. Felix spent hours reading journals from all over the world as he showed an early interest in world affairs.

Felix thrived on learning and went to the Free Academy of New York, now called City College. There he completed a program combining part of high school and all of his college requirements. In 1902, at the age of nineteen, he graduated third in his class of 775. Felix had long known that he wanted to be an attorney. He attended Harvard Law School where he was at the top of his class all three years before graduating in 1906.

While at Harvard, the philosophy of Professor James Bradley Thayer (1831–1902) impressed Frankfurter and became the foundation of his own jurisprudence (theories in law). Thayer counseled that, as a general principle, the courts should defer to Congress and the state legislatures whenever possible since legislators were directly elected by the public to solve social issues.

Dissenting views

Frankfurter began private practice with a New York law firm. During his first year he was appointed Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York under Henry Stimson (1867–1950). From Stimson, Frankfurter learned the art of trial preparation, which stressed not only to prepare for your own case but for the opposition's case as well. With his fondness for details, Felix gathered large amounts of credible evidence to support his oral arguments in court. Analyzing legal problems from multiple perspectives became Frankfurter's specialty. Stimson also taught him how to coax reluctant colleagues toward his point of view, a talent he perfected over time. When Stimson was appointed Secretary of War in 1910, Frankfurter accompanied him to Washington, D.C., to work as legal counsel for the Bureau of Insular Affairs.

Frankfurter had an exuberant style and a meticulous legal mind as well as a great deal of confidence in his own abilities to bring about consensus in any situation. Using his personality and keen intellect, he formed close relationships with those in power and used flattery and praise on those he most wanted to please.

In 1914 Frankfurter accepted an appointment to the faculty of Harvard Law School as professor of administrative law. From 1916 until 1918 President Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924; served 1913–21) called on him to investigate a growing number of labor disputes. Because of his outspoken support of individual civil rights and the protection of defendants' rights in criminal trials, he was often viewed as a staunch liberal (believing in the natural goodness of human beings and favoring civil liberties, democratic reform, and social progress).

In 1920 Frankfurter was a founding member of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The organization was created in response to the Red Scare (the American government and public fear of communism and its perceived threat to American democracy that led to mass arrests of foreigners) following World War I (1914–18; war in which Great Britain, France, the United States, and their allies defeated Germany, Austria-Hungary, and their allies). Communism was seen as a serious threat to American democracy and greatly feared by the public. Government agents arrested large numbers of people and held them indefinitely because of their political beliefs. The ACLU worked to defend the civil rights guaranteed in state and federal constitutions for those detained by law enforcement.

The case of Sacco and Vanzetti

One criminal trial that symbolized Frankfurter's advocacy of reform in the criminal justice field was the Sacco-Vanzetti case. In April 1920, at the height of the Red Scare, a payroll clerk and guard were murdered and robbed in the small industrial town of South Braintree near Boston, Massachusetts. Three weeks later two Italian immigrants, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, wandered into a trap set by police to capture the suspects.

Neither Sacco nor Vanzetti had a previous criminal record, but they were known to authorities for their support of local labor strikes, antiwar activities during World War I, and associations with other political radicals. Though not considered suspects at first, police found that the two were armed and carried politically radical literature. Suspicion grew as the two
did not answer questions directly about their current activities, perhaps trying to protect others.

Both Sacco and Vanzetti were taken into custody and eventually charged with the crimes. The resulting court case was one of the most notorious political trials in the United States during the twentieth century. Their defense attorney aggressively attacked the police for focusing primarily on the defendants' political activities and involvement in the Italian anarchist (opposing structured governments) movement, rather than on evidence pertaining to the robbery and murders. Considerable publicity from the trial caught international attention. After a long six-week trial, the jury found them guilty on July 14, 1921.

Numerous attempts to appeal the verdict based on potential flaws in the trial's proceedings and even possible confessions to the crime from others in custody were rejected. The case grew in notoriety. Demonstrations were held in the United States as well as Europe on Sacco and Vanzetti's behalf for a retrial. These efforts failed too and the two men were sentenced to death on April 8, 1927.

The Supreme Court of the United States

The U.S. Supreme Court is located in Washington, D.C. It is the highest court in the United States and has ultimate judicial authority to interpret and decide questions of both federal and state law. As a result of this authority, it has had some of the greatest impacts on the nation's criminal justice system. The Supreme Court is the only court required by the U.S. Constitution. All other federal courts are created by Congress with intentionally limited jurisdiction. The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in suits between states but most of its work consists of reviewing appeals from state supreme courts or lower federal courts.

The justices of the Supreme Court are appointed for life by the president and confirmed by a majority vote of the Senate. As of 2004, nine justices sat on the Supreme Court with one being appointed chief justice and the remaining members designated as associate justices. The U.S. Constitution provides, in Article I, Section 3, that if a president is impeached (charged formally with misconduct in office), "the Chief Justice shall preside" over the Senate trial.

On September 24, 1789, the Judiciary Act became law. In addition to establishing the Supreme Court, the act divided the country into three circuits, and established three circuit courts: Eastern, Middle, and Southern. The act did not provide separate judgeships for the circuit courts but directed that each was to consist of two Supreme Court justices and one district judge.

The Judiciary Act also established thirteen district courts and judgeships, providing at least one district court for each state then in the Union. The district courts functioned as trial courts, while the circuit courts served as trial courts for certain kinds of cases but also heard appeals from the lower courts. The Supreme Court was the highest appellate court and had the jurisdiction to review all appeals from the lower courts.

The Supreme Court first met on February 2, 1790. Since they still had no cases on the docket, the justices spent the first session attending to administrative matterssuch as the adoption of Rules of the Court and the admission of attorneys to the Supreme Court bar. The Court was to define what would be law and to invalidate any legislative or executive act that would be contrary to the Constitution.

During the first decade of the Court, the justices devoted most of their time to organizing the federal judicial system and riding circuit, visiting a series of federal courts located around a particular geographic area to hear appeals of cases, to hear cases as trial and appellate judges. Civil disputes between citizens of different states as well as controversies concerning national government and its laws comprised most of the early cases heard. Previously there had only been state courts and the concept of the "United States" was relatively new, so many were initially reluctant to accept the new federal authority.

Although the circuit-riding of justices played an important role in educating citizens about their federal government, it took a heavy toll on those serving. Justices wrote to family and friends recounting the physical challenges of riding the circuit by horseback, stagecoach, and steamboat while lodging in taverns and public houses for long periods of time each year. Finally, in 1891, Congress passed the Circuit Court of Appeals Act establishing nine Circuit Courts of Appeals with permanent judgeships.

For the next 170 years, the Court issued few rulings related to rights of defendants or victims in the criminal justice system. The Court would make its mark in criminal law in the 1960s under the leadership of Justice Earl Warren (1891–1974). The Court made several landmark decisions between 1961 and 1966 affirming the rights of the accused in the criminal justice system from such police actions as illegal search and seizure (known as the exclusionary rule) and advising suspects of their rights before interrogations (Miranda rights).

The exclusionary rule states that evidence illegally obtained by the police cannot be used in a court of law. Miranda rights state that police must advise a person being arrested that they have the right to remain silent, that anything they say can be used against them in court, they have the right to have a lawyer, and that a lawyer will be provided if the person cannot afford one.

Frankfurter stepped forward to rally public support by claiming that justice had not been served. With pressure from Frankfurter and other influential people, the governor of Massachusetts formed a committee that included the president of Harvard University. The committee was to determine if the governor should grant clemency (reduce the severity of the sentence) for the defendants. After a quick review, the committee determined clemency was not in order.

Sacco and Vanzetti were executed on April 23. Frankfurter protested what he claimed was the unjust nature of the entire case. He charged that the trial was driven by a strong bias against immigrants and political radicals. Decades later after several reviews, researchers could still not find sufficient evidence to support the guilt of either Sacco or Vanzetti.

A Harvard legal adviser

After a six-year courtship, Felix had married Marion Denman in 1920. The couple had no children together. Although he remained at Harvard, Frankfurter continued to exert his influence in Washington, D.C. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1892–1945; served 1933–45) became president, he often consulted Frankfurter, a fellow Democrat, about the legal implications of his New Deal legislation. As a result of this work, Frankfurter placed many of his Harvard students in important positions as law clerks in the new agencies Roosevelt created. These young people earned the name "the Happy Hot Dogs of Felix Frankfurter."

Supreme Court justice

When Roosevelt was given the opportunity to refill a number of the Supreme Court justice positions after a series of retirements, he nominated Frankfurter. Frankfurter was sworn in as an associate justice on January 30, 1939. Frankfurter's passion for the democratic process dominated his case deliberations. He dedicated his twenty-three years on the Supreme Court as a leading proponent of judicial restraint, meaning he believed the country's best hope for the protection of democratic values rested within the elected branches of government —the legislative and executive branches—not the judicial branch. (The legislative branch makes laws; the executive branch puts the laws into effect; and the judicial branch enforces the laws by administering justice.)

Frankfurter argued in favor of leaving it to the legislative branch to pass the nation's laws, which the courts would then interpret. This legal position angered and frustrated many of those who had initially been pleased with his appointment to the Supreme Court. Many wanted Frankfurter to be much more aggressive in expanding the constitutional safeguards for defendants in criminal cases, as he had during the Red Scare of the 1920s.

Nonetheless Frankfurter remained true to his earliest convictions of judicial restraint throughout his career. He retired from the Court on August 28, 1962, following a stroke. Felix Frankfurter died on February 22, 1965, at the age of eighty-two. The Supreme Court adopted many of his earlier beliefs concerning defendants' rights to fair trials after his death. The Court passed a series of rulings in the late 1960s greatly altering the criminal justice process.

For More Information

Books

McWhirter, Darien A. The Legal 100: A Ranking of the Individuals Who Have Most Influenced the Law. Secaucus, NJ: Citadel Press, 1998.

Simon, James F. The Antagonists: Hugo Black, Felix Frankfurter and Civil Liberties in Modern America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.

The Supreme Court of the United States: Its Beginnings and Its Justices—

1790–1991. Washington, DC: Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution, 1992.

Web Sites

"Biographies of Supreme Court of the United States Justices: Felix Frankfurter." Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Supreme_Court (accessed on August 15, 2004).

"Felix Frankfurter." The National Archives Learning Curve.http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAfrankfurter.htm (accessed on February 20, 2004).