A Kansas farm boy, who talked his way into law school despite
his lack of a high school diploma, Charles E. Whittaker was
admitted to the bar before graduation and became the stereotype of
a demanding, workaholic attorney. In a thirty-year practice
representing Midwest corporations, he became universally admired
among Missouri lawyers, and the American Bar Association called him
one of the best selections ever made for the Supreme Court. Yet the
very characteristics that made Whittaker one of the most acclaimed
choices ensured that his service would be catastrophic both for the
Court and for him. By the time he left that bench, legal scholars
considered his performance on the Court as one of the saddest.
Whittaker was apolitical, yet won judicial appointments
requiring strong support from politicians of national strength. He
was a hard-line law and order judge who was horrified by the death
penalty. During the turbulent 1960s, he called for rational
discussion of public issues, yet gave inflammatory speeches linking
the civil rights movement to Communism. He was the epitome of his
era's Main Street conservatism. Most biographies of justices deal
with those who had great influence on law and society. From an
institutional standpoint, however, this study of a justice who
failed sharpens our understanding of how the U.S. Supreme Court
differs from other judicial bodies and fills a surprising gap in
the Court's history.
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