Who are some of your favorite Supreme Court Justices--EVER!

[WI_DEM]

Louis Brandeis
CJ Earl Warren
Hugo Black
William Brennan

head my list

[GrumpyGreg]

1. Warren---the biggest surprise ever.

[WI_DEM]

2. Truly

Ike called him his "biggest mistake" but he was a great CJ.

[Spider Jerusalem]

3. Mine

John Marshall Harlan (sole dissenter in Plessy v Ferguson)
Earl Warren
Robert Jackson
Louis Brandeis
John Marshall
Oliver Wendell Holmes

[WI_DEM]

4. Yes--Harlan deserves much credit for that

I think he was known as "The Great Dissenter" in a time when many court decisions deserved dissent.

[wryter2000]

6. "Three generations of imbeciles are enough"

Ironically, Holmes was the justice who argued that "defective" women could be sterilized without their consent because "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." It's all documented in Stephen Jay Gould's magnificent book, The Mismeasure of Man.

Of course, Warren was the California governor who presided over sending Japanese Americans to detainment camps.

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Yes, I know...

(I've read The Mismeasre of Man, too)...but the rest of hs career more than balances the scales (FDR was the President who presided over Japanese-American internment, and I'd still rank him as our greatest president...)

[wryter2000]

8. You're right on both counts

And about Warren, too. The irony's interesting, though.

[wryter2000]

5. Mine

All of the above, plus Thurgood Marshall and William O. Douglas

[rug]

9. Wm. O. Douglas