Wiley Rutledge (1894-1949)

Wiley Rutledge was born on July 20, 1894 in Cloverpot, Kentucky. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1914, and was a public school teacher for several years. He then attended the University of Colorado Law School, graduating in 1922. He then taught law, first at his alma mater, and then at Washington University in St. Louis and at the University of Iowa.

In 1939, the ardent New Dealer was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit after making a name for himself in criticizing the decisions of the pre-1937 Supreme Court, and in supporting FDR's court-packing plan. After the resignation of Jimmy Byrnes from the Court, FDR nominated Rutledge, the last of FDR's appointments to the Court. He was a member of the Court from 1943 until his death on September 10, 1949.

Rutledge wrote several important opinions regarding the first amendment. He wrote several opinions holding unconstitutional licensing laws as a violation of the free speech clause. He did, however, write the Court's opinion in Prince v. Massachusetts (1944), which upheld the commonwealth's regulation of child labor against a free exercise claim of Jehovah's Witnesses. Rutledge is also known for his dissent in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), in which he cited Thomas Jefferson and James Madison for the proposition that even "three pence" was an impermissible support of religion by government. Although the Court held constitutional the government's decision to allow school children to be taken to and from Catholic school by public transport, Rutledge helped secure the "separationist" approach to the Establishment Clause, an approach that was dominant until the early 1970s, and which remains the preferred approach to such claims by a minority of the current Supreme Court membership.

Further reading: John M. Ferren, Salt of the Earth: Conscience of the Court (2004).