Tom C. Clark
Encyclopedia
Thomas Campbell Clark was United States Attorney General
United States Attorney General
The United States Attorney General is the head of the United States Department of Justice concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The attorney general is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government...

 from 1945 to 1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...

 (1949–1967).

Early life and career

Clark was born in Dallas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

, Texas to Virginia Maxey Falls and William Henry Clark. A graduate of Dallas High, he served as a Texas National Guard
United States National Guard
The National Guard of the United States is a reserve military force composed of state National Guard militia members or units under federally recognized active or inactive armed force service for the United States. Militia members are citizen soldiers, meaning they work part time for the National...

 infantry
Infantry
Infantrymen are soldiers who are specifically trained for the role of fighting on foot to engage the enemy face to face and have historically borne the brunt of the casualties of combat in wars. As the oldest branch of combat arms, they are the backbone of armies...

man in 1918; afterward he studied law, receiving his law degree from the University of Texas School of Law
University of Texas School of Law
The University of Texas School of Law, also known as UT Law, is an ABA-certified American law school located on the University of Texas at Austin campus. The law school has been in operation since the founding of the University in 1883. It was one of only two schools at the University when it was...

 in 1922. He was a brother of Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta is a U.S.-based international secret letter college fraternity. Delta Tau Delta was founded in 1858 at Bethany College, Bethany, Virginia, . It currently has around 125 student chapters nationwide, as well as more than 25 regional alumni groups. Its national community service...

 fraternity, and later served as their international president. He set up a law practice in his home town of Dallas from 1922 to 1937, but resigned from private practice for a period to serve as civil district attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...

 for the city from 1927 to 1932.

Clark, a Democrat, joined the Justice Department
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...

 in 1937 as a special assistant to the U.S. attorney general for war risk litigation. He served as civilian coordinator for the forced relocation of Japanese-Americans
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...

 during the opening months of World War II. He headed the antitrust
Antitrust
The United States antitrust law is a body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both,...

 division at Justice in 1943, and the criminal division from 1943 to 1945.

Attorney General and Supreme Court Justice

Appointed Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...

 by President Harry Truman in 1945, Clark was nominated to the Court on August 2, 1949, filling the vacancy left by the death of Frank Murphy
Frank Murphy
William Francis Murphy was a politician and jurist from Michigan. He served as First Assistant U.S. District Attorney, Eastern Michigan District , Recorder's Court Judge, Detroit . Mayor of Detroit , the last Governor-General of the Philippines , U.S...

. See, Harry S. Truman Supreme Court candidates
Harry S. Truman Supreme Court candidates
During his two terms in office, President Harry S. Truman appointed four members of the Supreme Court of the United States: Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson, and Associate Justices Harold Burton, Tom C. Clark, and Sherman Minton.-Harold Burton nomination:...

. The New York Times called Clark "a personal and political friend [of Truman's] with no judicial experience and few demonstrated qualifications." Nevertheless, Clark was confirmed by the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...

 on August 18, 1949, receiving his commission the following day.

Truman later came to regret his choice; he remarked to a biographer many years later that "Tom Clark was my biggest mistake." The change in Truman's attitude stemmed from Clark's vote to strike down as unconstitutional Truman's seizure of the nation's steel mills to end a strike in 1952's Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer
Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, , also commonly referred to as The Steel Seizure Case, was a United States Supreme Court decision that limited the power of the President of the United States to seize private property in the absence of either specifically enumerated authority under Article...

.
Justice Murphy, Clark's predecessor, had made a 5 to 4 majority on the Supreme Court for those justices who viewed the Court as a possible instrument of social change. But Clark, along with Truman's other conservative appointees, would change that. While on the Supreme Court, Clark was generally a conservative who nonetheless proved a key vote in some Warren Court cases expanding the scope of individual rights. He is noted for writing the majority opinion in the landmark cases Mapp v. Ohio
Mapp v. Ohio
Mapp v. Ohio, , was a landmark case in criminal procedure, in which the United States Supreme Court decided that evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment, which protects against "unreasonable searches and seizures," may not be used in criminal prosecutions in state courts, as well as...

, applying the Fourth Amendment
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution is the part of the Bill of Rights which guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, along with requiring any warrant to be judicially sanctioned and supported by probable cause...

 "exclusionary rule" to the states, and Abington School District v. Schempp
Abington School District v. Schempp
Abington Township School District v. Schempp , 374 U.S. 203 , was a United States Supreme Court case argued on February 27–28, 1963 and decided on June 17, 1963...

, invalidating daily Bible readings in public schools. Clark supported the end of racial segregation, joining the unanimous decisions in Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, 347 U.S. 483 , was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that declared state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students unconstitutional. The decision overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896 which...

and Sweatt v. Painter
Sweatt v. Painter
Sweatt v. Painter, , was a U.S. Supreme Court case that successfully proved lack of equality, in favor of a black applicant, the "separate but equal" doctrine of racial segregation established by the 1896 case Plessy v. Ferguson. The case was also influential in the landmark case of Brown v...

.

Later life

Clark assumed senior status
Senior status
Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for United States federal judges, and judges in some state court systems. After federal judges have reached a certain combination of age and years of service on the federal courts, they are allowed to assume senior status...

, effectively retiring from the Supreme Court, on June 12, 1967. He did so to avoid a conflict of interest
Conflict of interest
A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other....

 when his son, Ramsey Clark
Ramsey Clark
William Ramsey Clark is an American lawyer, activist and former public official. He worked for the U.S. Department of Justice, which included service as United States Attorney General from 1967 to 1969, under President Lyndon B. Johnson...

, was appointed Attorney General. He was succeeded on the Court by Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall
Thurgood Marshall was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, serving from October 1967 until October 1991...

. Lyndon Johnson was said to have appointed Ramsey Clark as Attorney General precisely to force Tom Clark off the bench, leaving a vacancy so that LBJ could appoint Marshall as the first African-American Justice on the Supreme Court. After Clark's retirement he served as a visiting judge on several U.S. Courts of Appeals
United States courts of appeals
The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal court system...

, as director of the Federal Judicial Center
Federal Judicial Center
The Federal Judicial Center is the education and research agency of the United States federal courts. It was established by an Act of Congress in 1967, at the recommendation of the Judicial Conference of the United States....

, and as Chair of the Board of Directors for the American Judicature Society.

Clark died in New York City and is buried in Restland Memorial Park, Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...

. Tom C. Clark High School
Tom C. Clark High School
Tom C. Clark High School is a high school, operated by the Northside Independent School District, in San Antonio, Texas, United States. Built in 1978 with five main buildings surrounding a court yard with over 120 class rooms it is one of NISD biggest schools.In 2009, the school was rated...

 of the Northside Independent School District of San Antonio, Texas is named in honor of him. Also named after him is the Tom C. Clark Building, an office building of the Texas Judiciary in Austin. His former law clerks honored him by creating the Tom C. Clark award given to the outstanding Supreme Court Fellow each year. Winners of this award include Professor Robert George
Robert P. George
Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, where he lectures on constitutional interpretation, civil liberties and philosophy of law. He also serves as the director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions...

, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

, and Professor Barbara A. Perry
Barbara A. Perry
Dr. Barbara A. Perry, a U.S. Supreme Court and presidency expert, as well as a biographer of the Kennedys, is a Senior Fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center and is the former Carter Glass Professor of Government and founding director of the Center for Civic Renewal at Sweet Briar...

, Senior Fellow at the University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs
Miller Center of Public Affairs
The Miller Center of Public Affairs is a non-partisan research institute that is part of the University of Virginia.Founded in 1975, the Miller Center is a leading public policy institution that serves as a national meeting place where engaged citizens, scholars, students, media representatives and...

 and former Carter Glass
Carter Glass
Carter Glass was a newspaper publisher and politician from Lynchburg, Virginia. He served many years in Congress as a member of the Democratic Party. As House co-sponsor, he played a central role in the development of the 1913 Glass-Owen Act that created the Federal Reserve System. Glass...

 Professor of Government at Sweet Briar College
Sweet Briar College
Sweet Briar College is a liberal arts women's college in Sweet Briar, Virginia, about north of Lynchburg, Virginia. The school's Latin motto translates as: "She who has earned the rose may bear it."...

. In 1977, Clark became the first recipient of the Distinguished Jurist Award at Mississippi State University
Mississippi State University
The Mississippi State University of Agriculture and Applied Science commonly known as Mississippi State University is a land-grant university located in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi, United States, partially in the town of Starkville and partially in an unincorporated area...

.

An extensive collection of Clark's papers, including his Supreme Court files, is housed at the University of Texas in Austin. The law school also maintains the "Tom C. Clark" fellowship, entitling selected students with a sizable tuition subsidy. The main student lounge in the school is named after Clark as well. A smaller collection, primarily relating to Clark's years as Attorney General, is located at the Harry S. Truman Library in Independence, Missouri.

Clark became an Eagle Scout
Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America)
Eagle Scout is the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouting program of the Boy Scouts of America . A Scout who attains this rank is called an Eagle Scout or Eagle. Since its introduction in 1911, the Eagle Scout rank has been earned by more than 2 million young men...

 in 1914 and was a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award
Distinguished Eagle Scout Award
The Distinguished Eagle Scout Award is a distinguished service award of the Boy Scouts of America . It is awarded to an Eagle Scout for distinguished service in his profession and to his community for a period of at least 25 years after attaining the level of Eagle Scout...

.

Clark was a member of Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta
Delta Tau Delta is a U.S.-based international secret letter college fraternity. Delta Tau Delta was founded in 1858 at Bethany College, Bethany, Virginia, . It currently has around 125 student chapters nationwide, as well as more than 25 regional alumni groups. Its national community service...

 International Fraternity and served as the fraternity's International President from 1966 to 1968.

Justice Clark's personal papers, consisting of 524 linear feet (869 boxes, 20 scrapbooks, around 1,000 photographs, and approximately 100 oversize items) are in the care of the University of Texas School of Law.

See also




Further reading

  • Abraham, Henry J., Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. 3d. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press
    Oxford University Press
    Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...

    , 1992). ISBN 0-19-506557-3.
  • Cushman, Clare, The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies,1789–1995 (2nd ed.) (Supreme Court Historical Society), (Congressional Quarterly
    Congressional Quarterly
    Congressional Quarterly, Inc., or CQ, is a privately owned publishing company that produces a number of publications reporting primarily on the United States Congress...

     Books, 2001) ISBN 1-56802-126-7; ISBN 978-1-56802-126-3.
  • Frank, John P., The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions (Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, editors) (Chelsea House Publishers: 1995) ISBN 0-7910-1377-4, ISBN 978-0-7910-1377-9.
  • Martin, Fenton S. and Goehlert, Robert U., The U.S. Supreme Court: A Bibliography, (Congressional Quarterly Books, 1990). ISBN 0-87187-554-3.
  • Urofsky, Melvin I., The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary (New York: Garland Publishing 1994). 590 pp. ISBN 0-8153-1176-1; ISBN 978-0-8153-1176-8.
  • Wohl, Alexander, "Mapp v. Ohio Turns 50 -- If a moderate Texan could love the exclusionary rule, why can't judicial conservatives?" Slate, June 7, 2011.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK