Warren, Earl

Born March 19, 1891, in Los Angeles, CA
Died July 9, 1974, in Washington, DC

Federal Judicial Service:
Chief Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
Received a recess appointment from Dwight D. Eisenhower on October 2, 1953, to a seat vacated by Fred M. Vinson; nominated to the same position by Dwight D. Eisenhower on January 11, 1954. Confirmed by the Senate on March 1, 1954, and received commission on March 20, 1954. Assumed senior status on June 23, 1969. Service terminated on July 9, 1974, due to death.

Supreme Court Oath:
October 5, 1953

Allotment as Circuit Justice:

Fourth Circuit, October 12, 1953-June 23, 1969
District of Columbia Circuit, October 12, 1953-June 23, 1969
Sixth Circuit, February 6, 1968-June 23, 1969

Education:
University of California, Berkeley, B.A., 1912
University of California, Berkeley, School of Jurisprudence, J.D., 1914

Professional Career:

Private practice, San Francisco and Oakland, California, 1914-1917
U.S. Army first lieutenant, 1917-1918
Clerk, Judiciary Committee, California State Assembly, 1919
Deputy city attorney, Oakland, California, 1919-1920
Deputy district attorney, Alameda County, California, 1920-1925; chief deputy district attorney, 1923-1925
District attorney, Alameda County, California, 1925-1938
Attorney general, State of California, 1938-1942
Governor, California, 1942-1953
Republican candidate for vice president of the United States, 1948
Presiding officer, Judicial Conference of the United States, 1954-1969
Chair of the board, Federal Judicial Center, 1968-1969

Bibliography

Belknap, Michael R. The Supreme Court under Earl Warren 1953-1969. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005.

Brown, Jeff. “The Platonic Guardian and the Lawyer’s Judge: Contrasting the Judicial Philosophies of Earl Warren and John M. Harlan.” Houston Law Review, vol. 44, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 253-84.

Brown, Robert L. “From Earl Warren to Wendell Griffen: A Study of Judicial Intimidation and Judicial Self-Restraint.” University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review, vol. 28, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 1-18.

Cho, Sumi. “Redeeming Whiteness in the Shadow of Internment: Earl Warren, Brown, and a Theory of Racial Resentment.” Boston College Law Review, vol. 40, no. 1 (Dec. 1998): 73-170.

Compston, Christine L. Earl Warren: Justice for All. New York: Oxford University Press.

Cray, Ed. Chief Justice: A Biography of Earl Warren. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2008.

Douglass, John Aubrey. “Earl Warren’s New Deal: Economic Transition, Postwar Planning, and Higher Education in California.” Journal of Policy History, vol. 12, no. 4 (2000): 473-512.

Droessler, Thomas C. “Invention and Style in Earl Warren’s Legal Argumentation.” Ph.D. Diss., Bowling Green State University, 1974.

Fleischer, Lawrence. “Thomas E. Dewey and Earl Warren: The Rise of the Twentieth Century Urban Prosecutor.” California Western Law Review, vol. 28, no. 1 (1991-1992): 1-50.

Fordham, Jefferson B. “Earl Warren, A Man For All Men.” Human Rights, vol. 1, no. 2 (1970-1971): 1-12.

Frank, John P. and Julie Zatz. “The Appointment of Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the United States.” Arizona State Law Journal, vol. 23, no. 3 (Fall 1991): 725-33.

Groves, Harry E. “The Legal Philosophy of Chief Justice Earl Warren of the United States Supreme Court.” University of Malaya Law Review, vol. 2 (Dec. 1960): 178-200.

Harvey, Richard B. “Governor Earl Warren of California: A Study in ‘Non-Partisan’ Republican Politics.” California Historical Society Quarterly, vol. 46, no. 1 (Mar. 1967): 33-51.

Henderson, Lloyd Ray. “Earl Warren and California Politics.” Ph.D. Diss., University of California, 1966.

Howard, A.E. Dick. “From Warren to Burger: Activism and Restraint.” The Wilson Quarterly, vol. 1, no. 3 (Spring 1977): 109-21.

Huston, Luther. Pathway to Judgment: A Study of Earl Warren. Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1966.

Hutchinson, Dennis J. “Felix Frankfurter and the Business of the Supreme Court, O.T. 1946 – O.T. 1961.” Supreme Court Review, vol. 1980 (1980): 143-210.

Kamisar, Yale. “How Earl Warren’s Twenty-Two Years in Law Enforcement Affected His Work as Chief Justice.” Ohio State Journal of Criminal Law, vol. 3, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 11-32.

Katcher, Leo. Earl Warren: A Political Biography. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967.

Kenny, Robert W. “Chief Justice Earl Warren.” Lawyers Guild Review, vol. 14, no. 2 (Summer 1954): 1-2.

King, Otis H. “Chief Justice Earl Warren.” North Carolina Central Law Review, vol. 12, no. 2 (Spring 1981): 238-49.

Kurland, Philip B. “Earl Warren, the ‘Warren Court,’ and the Warren Myths.” Michigan Law Review, vol. 67, no. 2 (December 1968): 353-8.

Long, Edward R. “Earl Warren and the Politics of Anti-Communism.” Pacific Historical Review, vol. 51, no. 1 (Feb. 1982): 51-70.

Mitchell, Daniel J.B. “Earl Warren’s California Health Plan: What Might Have Been.” Southern California Quarterly, vol. 85, no. 2 (Summer 2003): 205-28.

________. “Earl Warren’s Fight for California’s Freeways: Setting the Path for a Nation.” Southern California Quarterly, vol. 88, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 205-38.

Moke, Paul. Earl Warren and the Struggle for Justice. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2015.

Newton, Jim. Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made. New York: Riverhead Books, 2007.

Parrish, Michael E. “Earl Warren and the American Judicial Tradition.” American Bar Foundation Research Journal, vol. 1982, no. 4 (Fall 1982): 1179-88.

Phillips, E. Herbert. Earl Warren’s Masonic Lodge: Herbert Phillips’ Fifty-Year History of Sequoia Lodge. Washington, DC: Westphalia, 2013.

Pollack, Jack Harrison. Earl Warren, the Judge Who Changed America. New York: Prentice Hall, 1979.

Pollak, Louis H. “The Legacy of Earl Warren.” Harvard Law Review, vol. 88, no. 1 (Nov. 1974): 8-10.

Ramadas, Sandhya. “How Earl Warren Previewed Today’s Civil Liberties Debate – And Got it Right in the End.” Asian American Law Review, vol. 16, no. 1 (2009): 73-130.

Scheiber, Harry N., ed. Earl Warren and the Warren Court: The Legacy in American and Foreign Law. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007.

Schwartz, Bernard. “Chief Justice Earl Warren: Super Chief in Action.” Tulsa Law Journal, vol. 33, no. 2 (Winter 1997): 477-504.

________. “Earl Warren as a Judge.” Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, vol. 12, no. 2 (Winter 1985): 179-200.

________. “Felix Frankfurter and Earl Warren: A Study of a Deteriorating Relationship.” Supreme Court Review, vol. 1980 (1980): 115-42.

________. “The Judicial Lives of Earl Warren.” Suffolk University Law Review, vol. 15, no. 1 (Mar. 1981): 1-22.

________. Super Chief: Earl Warren and His Supreme Court – A Judicial Biography. New York: New York University Press, 1983.

Stone, Irving. Earl Warren: A Great American Story. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1948.

Ulmer, S. Sidney. “Earl Warren and the Brown Decision.” Journal of Politics, vol. 33, no. 3 (Aug. 1971): 689-702.

________. “The Use of Power in the Supreme Court: The Opinion Assignments of Earl Warren, 1953-1960.” Journal of Public Law, vol. 19, no. 1 (1970): 49-68.

Warren, Earl. The Memoirs of Chief Justice Earl Warren. New York: Doubleday, 1977.

________. A Republic, If You Can Keep It. New York: Times Books, 1972.

Weaver, John D. Warren: The Man, the Court, the Era. London: Victor Gollancz, 1968.

White, G. Edward. Earl Warren: A Public Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982.

________. “Earl Warren as a Jurist.” Virginia Law Review, vol. 67, no. 3 (Apr. 1981): 461-552.

Willens, Howard P. History Will Prove Us Right: Inside the Warren Commission Report on the Assassination of John F. Kennedy. New York: Overlook Press, 2013.

Manuscript Collections

California State Archives
Sacramento, Cal.
Earl Warren papers, 1924-1953.
Finding aid; includes seven series (further divided into 481 subseries): I. Political, 1926-1952; II. Administrative files of the Alameda County District Attorney's Office, 1924-1938, and State Attorney General's Office, 1939-1942; III. Governor's Office, administrative files, 1943-1953; IV. Governor's Office, legislative files, 1943-1953; V. Governor's Office, federal files, 1943-1953; VI. Personal papers, 1927-1953; and VII. Miscellaneous papers, 1928-1953.

Library of Congress
Washington, D.C.
Earl Warren papers, 1864-1974.
250,000 items; finding aid; personal, family, and official correspondence; speeches; writings; and U.S. Supreme Court files consisting of calendars, docket books, conference lists, bench memoranda, notes, opinions, correspondence with associate justices, records relating to lower federal courts, organizational files, scrapbooks, and other papers.

University of Virginia Law School
Charlottesville, Va.
Earl Warren papers, 1948-1974.
1 box (0.6 linear ft.); finding aid; letters primarily of a social nature and memorabilia about Warren collected by Wallace Lynn.

Oral History

Warren, Earl. "Earl Warren Oral History Interview I." Interview conducted on September 21, 1971, by Joe B. Frantz. Lyndon B. Johnson Library, Austin, Texas. Transcript, 36 pages.

Warren, Earl. "Earl Warren Oral History." Interview conducted on May 11, 1972, by Jerry N. Hess. Harry S Truman Library, Independence, Missouri, 1972. Transcript, 65 pages.

Warren, Earl, et al. "Earl Warren in California." Interviews conducted 1969-1978 by Earl Warren Oral History Project. Regional Oral History Office, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1970-1987. Transcripts, 50 volumes.

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Warren, Earl