Charles Evans Whittaker

Charles Whittaker
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
In office March 22, 1957 – March 31, 1962[1]
Nominated by	Dwight Eisenhower
Preceded by	Stanley Reed
Succeeded by	Byron White
Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
In office June 5, 1956 – March 22, 1957
Nominated by	Dwight Eisenhower
Preceded by	John Collet
Succeeded by	Marion Matthes
Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri
In office July 8, 1954 – June 5, 1956
Nominated by	Dwight Eisenhower
Preceded by	Albert Reeves
Succeeded by	Randle Smith
Personal details
Born	(1901-02-22)February 22, 1901 Troy, Kansas, U.S.
Died	November 26, 1973(1973-11-26) (aged 72) Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Winifred Pugh (m. 1928)
Children	3
Education	University of Missouri, Kansas City (LLB)

Charles Evans Whittaker (February 22, 1901 – November 26, 1973) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1957 to 1962.

After working in private practice in Kansas City, Missouri, he was nominated for the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Whittaker to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1957, he won confirmation to the Supreme Court, thus becoming the first individual to serve as a judge on a federal district court, a federal court of appeals, and the United States Supreme Court.

During his brief tenure on the Warren Court, Whittaker emerged as a swing vote. In 1962, he suffered a nervous breakdown and resigned from the Court. After leaving the Supreme Court, he served as chief counsel to General Motors and frequently criticized the Civil Rights Movement and the Warren Court.

Early years and career

Whittaker was born on a farm near Troy, Kansas to Charles Edward Whittaker, a farmer, and Ida Eve Miller, a schoolteacher from Hagerstown, Maryland. He attended the nearby one-room Brush Creek School, and then the Troy High School (Kansas) until he dropped out in the ninth grade after his mother died on his sixteenth birthday. He spent the next three years working on a family farm, and also hunting and trapping. Whittaker developed an interest in law by reading newspaper articles about criminal trials. In the summer of 1920, he applied to the part-time evening program at the Kansas City School of Law (currently the University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law) and gained admission with the condition that he would finish his high school education after personally pleading with Oliver Dean, a president of the law school. Immediately, he enrolled at Manual High School in Kansas City. He spent the next four years working during the day to support himself, and in the evenings was taking high school courses as well as classes at the K. C. School of Law. While Whittaker was a student at the school, future president Harry S. Truman was a classmate. Whittaker graduated in the class of 1924 having been admitted to the Missouri bar during his senior year.^[2]

Whittaker joined the law firm of Watson, Ess, Marshall & Enggas in Kansas City, Missouri, where he previously toiled full-time as an office boy, and built up a practice in corporate law with the Union Pacific Railroad, Montgomery Ward, and the City National Bank and Trust Company among his clients. He developed close ties to the Republican party. He was appointed as a federal judge on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri on July 8, 1954. He was nominated to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on June 5, 1956.^[2]

Supreme Court

Whittaker developed a good reputation as a judge. Less than a year after being appointed to the court of appeals, he was nominated to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, taking the oath on March 25, 1957. Whittaker thus became the first person to serve as a judge of a federal district court, a federal court of appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court. He was one of the four Republicans appointed to the court by Eisenhower (along with Earl Warren, John M. Harlan II, and Potter Stewart). Eisenhower appointed one Democrat, William J. Brennan, to the Court.^[3]

Justice Samuel Blatchford also served at all three levels of the federal judiciary, but the court system was configured slightly differently at that time. Justice Sonia Sotomayor is the most recent Justice to have served in all three levels of the federal judiciary.

On the closely divided Supreme Court, Whittaker was a swing vote. According to Professor Howard Ball, Whittaker was an "extremely weak, vacillating justice" who was "courted by the two cliques on the Court because his vote was generally up in the air and typically went to the group that made the last, but not necessarily the best, argument."^[4]

Whittaker failed to develop a consistent judicial philosophy and reportedly felt himself not as qualified as some of the other members of the court. After agonizing deeply for months over his vote in Baker v. Carr, a landmark reapportionment case, Whittaker suffered a nervous breakdown in the spring of 1962. At the behest of Chief Justice Earl Warren, Whittaker recused himself from the case and retired from the Court effective March 31, 1962, citing exhaustion from the heavy workload and stress.^[3]

Final years

Effective September 30, 1965, Whittaker resigned his position as a retired Justice in order to become chief counsel to General Motors. He also became a resolute critic of the Warren Court as well as the Civil Rights Movement, characterizing the civil disobedience of the type practiced by Martin Luther King, Jr. and his followers as lawless. He wrote a piece for the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin that advised protesters to use courts instead of taking to the streets.^[5]

Whittaker died in 1973 at St. Luke's Hospital in Kansas City of a ruptured abdominal aneurysm.^[6][7]

Family

In 1928, Whittaker married Winifred R. Pugh, they had three sons, Dr. Charles Keith Whittaker, a neurosurgeon; Kent E. Whittaker, an attorney; and Gary T. Whittaker, a stockbroker.

Legacy and honors

The federal courthouse in downtown Kansas City, Missouri, which houses the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri, is named in memory of Whittaker.

See also

References

Further reading

• Abraham, Henry J., Justices and Presidents: A Political History of Appointments to the Supreme Court. 3d. ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). ISBN 0-19-506557-3.
• Cushman, Clare, The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies,1789–1995 (2nd ed.) (Supreme Court Historical Society), (Congressional Quarterly 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.
• Smith, Craig Alan. Failing Justice: Charles Evans Whittaker On The Supreme Court. McFarland & Company, 2005.
• 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.

External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Charles Evans Whittaker

• Papers of Richard Lawrence Miller, 1998-2001 (materials collected while working on a biography of Supreme Court Justice Charles E. Whittaker: Whittaker: Struggles of a Supreme Court Justice. Greenwood Publishers, 2001.), Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library

Supreme Court of the United States
The Warren Court Chief Justice: Earl Warren (1953–1969) 1957–1958: H. Black F. Frankfurter Wm. O. Douglas H. H. Burton T. C. Clark J. M. Harlan II Wm. J. Brennan C. E. Whittaker 1958–1962: H. Black F. Frankfurter Wm. O. Douglas T. C. Clark J. M. Harlan II Wm. J. Brennan C. E. Whittaker P. Stewart