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Supreme
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Tom Clark (1899-1977) |
 Tom
Clark was born in Dallas, Texas on September 23, 1899. He served briefly
in World War I before graduating with undergraduate and law degrees from
the University of Texas. After practicing law with his father and
brother in Dallas, Clark served in local government in Texas. In 1937,
Clark moved to Washington, D.C. to work in the Justice Department. Eight
years later, President Harry S Truman appointed Clark Attorney General
of the United States. Clark remained Attorney General until 1949, when
he was nominated to the Court by Truman after the death of
Frank
Murphy. Because of his close ties to Truman, Clark's nomination was
opposed by several groups. After debate, however, he was overwhelmingly
confirmed by a vote of 73-8. Clark was a swing vote in a number of
contentious issues in the Supreme Court of the 1950s and 1960s. In
Jencks v. United States, the Court held that the government was required
to turn over files that might aid in exculpating the defendant. Clark
was the sole dissenter, arguing that the decision aided the Communist
cause (Jencks was the president of a local union that was alleged to be
dominated by Communists). In 1961, Clark authored the Court's opinion in
Mapp v. Ohio, which applied the exclusionary rule to states.
Clark also wrote two important religious liberty decision for the Court,
Abington
Sch. Dist. v. Schempp, and United States v. Seeger. The former
barred state-sponsored prayers in public schools, and the latter broadly
defined religion in interpreting Congress's statute granting
conscientious objector status to those whose objection was based on
"religious belief." In civil rights cases, Clark joined the liberal
majority, and wrote the Court's unanimous opinion holding constitutional
the Civil Rights Act of 1964.In the term ending June 1964, the members of the Court largely agreed with one another. In percentage terms, Clark agreed with the majority 83% of the time. Even so, this placed him next to last on the Court (last was John Marshall Harlan). Clark's retirement from the Court was engineered by President Lyndon B. Johnson, a fellow Texan. Johnson was determined to appoint the first black person to the Court, but he needed to create an opening on the Court. Johnson appointed Attorney General Nicholas deB. Katzenbach undersecretary of state, which made Tom Clark's son Ramsey the acting Attorney General. He then nominated Ramsey Clark to be Attorney General, assuming correctly that Tom Clark would retire from the Court to avoid any conflict of interest. Clark did so on June 12, 1967, and Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to the Court. Clark then served as the first director of the Federal Judicial Center, and participated in issues of judicial reform and management. Clark died on June 13, 1977. Further reading: Lucas A. Powe, Jr., The Warren Court and American Politics (Harvard University Press 2000); The Warren Court in Historical and Political Perspective (Mark Tushnet ed. University of Virginia Press 1993); John Paul Ryan, "Tom Campbell Clark," in The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States (1992). |
