Owen Josephus Roberts
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Owen Josephus Roberts (May 2, 1875 – May 17, 1955) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court for fifteen years. He also led the fact-finding commission that investigated the attack on Pearl Harbor.
He was born in Philadelphia and attended Germantown Academy and the University of Pennsylvania, where he was awarded a law degree in 1895.
He first gained notice as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. He was appointed by President Coolidge to investigate oil reserve scandals, known as Teapot Dome Scandals. This led to the prosecution and conviction of Albert B. Fall, the former Secretary of the Interior, for bribe taking.
He was appointed to the Supreme Court by Herbert Hoover after Hoover's nomination of John J. Parker was defeated by the Senate.
On the Court, Roberts was a swing vote between those, led by Justices Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, and Harlan Fiske Stone, as well as Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who would allow a broader interpretation of the Commerce Clause to allow Congress to pass New Deal legislation that would provide for a more active federal role in the national economy, and the Four Horsemen (Justices James Clark McReynolds, Pierce Butler, George Sutherland, and Willis Van Devanter) who favored a narrower interpretation of the Commerce Clause and believed that the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause protected a strong "liberty of contract." In 1936's United States v. Butler, Roberts sided with the Four Horsemen and wrote an opinion striking down the Agricultural Adjustment Act as beyond Congress's Commerce powers. Roberts switched his position on the constitutionality of the New Deal in late 1936, and the Supreme Court handed down West Coast Hotel v. Parrish in 1937, upholding the constitutionality of minimum wage laws. Subsequently, the Court would vote to uphold all New Deal programs. Since President Roosevelt's plan to appoint several new justices as part of his "Court-packing" plan of 1937 coincided with the Court's favorable decision in Parrish, many people called Roberts's vote in that case the "switch in time that saved nine." Roberts wrote the majority opinion in the landmark case New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., , safeguarding a right to boycott and in the struggle by African Americans against discriminatory hiring practices. He also wrote the majority opinion sustaining provisions of the second Agricultural Adjustment Act applied to the marketing of tobacco in Mulford v. Smith, .
Roberts was appointed by Roosevelt to head the commission investigating the attack on Pearl Harbor; his report was published in 1942 and was highly critical of the United States Military. Perhaps influenced by his work on the Pearl Harbor commission, Roberts dissented from the Court's decision upholding internment of Japanese-Americans along the West Coast in 1944's Korematsu v. United States.
In his later years on the bench, Roberts was the only Justice on the Supreme Court not appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roberts became frustrated with the liberalism of Roosevelt's nominees and their willingness to overturn precedent. He also became embroiled in a personal feud with Justice Hugo Black. Roberts resigned from the Court in 1945; Black refused to sign the customary letter acknowledging Roberts's service on his retirement.
He later served as the Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
He died at his Pennsylvania farm after a four month illness. He was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Caldwell Rogers, and daughter, Elizabeth Hamilton.
His name was adopted as the name of a school district near Pottstown, Pennsylvania.
[edit] References
- "Owen Roberts Dies; Former Justice, 80", The New York Times, May 18, 1955, p. 1.
- "The Roberts Commission and Pearl Harbor," in Kenneth Kitts, Presidential Commissions and National Security (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006).
| Preceded by Edward Terry Sanford |
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States June 2, 1930 – July 31, 1945 |
Succeeded by Harold Hitz Burton |
