Vol. 2 No. 1 (January, 1992) pp. 13-15
"HE SHALL NOT PASS THIS WAY AGAIN:" THE LEGACY OF
JUSTICE WILLIAM O. DOUGLAS by Stephen L. Wasby (Editor).
Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1990. 388 pp.
Reviewed by Joel B. Grossman, Department of Political Science,
University of Wisconsin--Madison
The essays and commentaries in this book were originally
presented at a conference in 1989 marking the 50th anniversary of
Justice William O. Douglas' appointment to the Supreme Court.
Four major aspects of Douglas's 36 year tenure on the Supreme
Court, the longest in history, are examined by a distinguished
but primarily friendly group of scholars: his decisionmaking
style and relations with his colleagues; his preeminence as a
civil libertarian; his views on environmental matters; and his
status as an internationalist. There is a lively give and take
about Douglas' behavior as a justice, and about some of his major
opinions; some conflicting assessments about his judicial
contributions to constitutional liberty; and more or less general
agreement, for better or worse, that he was the unique figure in
American law implied by the book's title. But conspicuously
absent (except in passing mention) are the more critical views of
Douglas' rights based liberalism that might have been expected
from commentators on the far left and the conservative right. As
in all collections of this kind, there is considerable diversity
of style and unevenness in the quality of research and analysis.
Nevertheless the book does present a coherent and useful, if
essentially conventional, portrait.
Douglas was an iconoclast and a loner, a rebel in judicial garb.
G. Edward White once characterized him as an
"anti-judge," who, reflecting his legal realist
background, regarded formal legal doctrine as a sham, placed
little value on precedent, disparaged and tried to reduce the
many traditional barriers that prevented equal and open access to
the justice system, and disparaged routine institutional
deference. Douglas was more interested in ideas and social
concerns, and in achieving the correct result in particular
cases, than in shaping doctrine or building judicial majorities.
He personified the judge as public philosopher (but not
jurisprude); his medium of choice was not constitutional theory
and the perpetual debates over the Supreme Court's proper
adjudicative role, but the effectuation of broad constitutional
principles; his audience of choice was not law professors but the
citizens whose rights he felt an obligation to protect. He was,
in these ways, the quintessential liberal judicial activist.
An underlying theme of at least some of these essays is that
Douglas was a "great" judge notwithstanding his
inconsistency, his meager doctrinal legacy, and his disdain for
legal form. Some contributors argue that his doctrinal legacy was
not so insubstantial, but this view is difficult to sustain. One
is hard pressed to identify more than a handful of Douglas'
opinions that instantly or subsequently changed the way the law
operates, or the way in which we think of the law and the
Constitution. The major exception, of course, is the right to
privacy which he articulated in the GRISWOLD case, and which, at
his urging,
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eventually became the doctrinal basis of ROE V. WADE. It is his
greatest claim to judicial fame, notwithstanding the current
conservative backlash which threatens to overrule ROE and limit
further extensions of GRISWOLD. Although even friendly critics
concede that, in its recognition or creation of a new
constitutional right, GRISWOLD was a major example of judicial
activism, Douglas adamantly maintained that it was not merely a
liberal version of substantive due process, and thus no more
legitimate than LOCHNER V. NEW YORK. But none could deny that
GRISWOLD was a bold, and largely successful, effort to expand the
range of protected constitutional rights. Its impact extended far
beyond the courthouse into almost every dimension of our life and
culture.
"Greatness" is, however, an elusive and highly
subjective concept. Douglas himself would have categorically
rejected doctrine as the sole basis for such a judgment. More
likely he would have pointed to his important role in completing
the New Deal Revolution and restoring the powers of Congress and
the states to regulate economic matters, a position summarized
forcefully in the PEREZ case; and to the evolution of his views
on protected speech to include expressive action, sexually
explicit materials, and provocative -- even seditious -- speech
which fell short of actual incitement. His courageous defense of
beleagured speech (joining with Hugo Black) during the McCarthy
period, epitomized by his DENNIS and BEAUHARNAIS dissents, helped
to lay the foundation for modern First Amendment doctrine, and
for the equally important principle that judges could and should
be responsible for enforcing individual rights -- especially in
times of crisis. He forced the Court, and the nation, to
understand the many dimensions of expression that were entitled
to constitutional protection, and the reality that expression
needed constant judicial attention.
Douglas was a strong supporter of civil rights, but not a major
contributor to the evolving doctrines of racial equality. He
tried unsuccessfully to persuade his brethren in the sit-in cases
to adopt a broad construction of the 13th and 14th Amendments,
but was instrumental in the ultimate revival of some long dormant
reconstruction statutes and expanding Congress' power to enforce
those Amendments. He argued for the constitutional fungibility of
defacto and dejure segregation, but then deferred to the
majority's view that nonintentional defacto segregation was not
unconstitutional. Douglas retired before the affirmative action
issue came to the fore, but his concurring opinion in the DEFUNIS
case suggested a fundamental opposition to race based benign
quotas which would have put him on a collision course with the
Brennan-led liberals. His belated and lame explanation for his
vote, and the Court's wartime decisions, in the Japanese
Exclusion cases, suggests that whatever his eventual commitment
to racial equality, it could be subordinated to claimed national
security needs.
A similar ambivalence might be discerned in matters of gender
equality. Douglas concurred in REED, the Court's first decision
holding that gender equality was protected by the 14th Amendment;
and he joined the plurality in FRONTIERO that futilely argued
that gender should be a suspect classification. But
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his paternalistic majority opinion in KAHN V. SHEVIN, upholding a
compensatory tax break for widows, suggests a more limited
conception.
Was William O. Douglas a "great" judge? Despite the
efforts of the many current curators of his reputation, history
probably will not accord him that accolade. He was an important
public figure and, notwithstanding the many contradictions, a
strong force for the development and judicial protection of
individual rights. But his long term influence is likely to be
seen as essentially transitional. He helped to shift the Court's
focus from, in Herman Pritchett and Alan Westin's phrase, a
jurisprudence of property to a jurisprudence of status. But his
noble aspirations for constitutional protection for human dignity
and autonomy, often brilliantly articulated, were often poorly
and incompletely advanced. This was due in part to his own
carelessness, but also to his curious reluctance to mobilize
judicial resources. Douglas' reputation thus exceeded his
achievements. Ironically, the same legal realism which freed him
to creatively interpret the Constitution, and the individualism
which so importantly defined him as a person and enabled him to
see so clearly the critical need for a rights conscious society,
also undermined his judicial effectiveness.
References
BEAUHARNAIS V. ILLINOIS, 343 US 250 (1952) DEFUNIS V. ODEGAARD,
416 US 312 (1974) DENNIS V. UNITED STATES, 341 US 494 (1951)
FRONTIERO V. RICHARDSON, 411 US 677 (1973) GRISWOLD V.
CONNECTICUT, 381 US 479 (1965) KOREMATSU V. UNITED STATES, 321 US
760 (1944) KAHN V. SHEVIN, 416 US 351 (1974) LOCHNER V. NEW YORK,
198 US 45 (1905) PEREZ V. UNITED STATES, 402 US 146 (1971) REED
V. REED, 404 US 71 (1971) ROE V. WADE, 410 US 113 (1973)
Copyright 1992