An interesting look into the Supreme Court's history
From
PhysOrg of all places:
Supreme Court mystery unlocked from BYU's vaults 75 years later
The explanation for a Supreme Court justice's motivations in one of the most mysterious and important decisions in U.S. history has been hiding deep in the vaults of BYU's Special Collections. It's been tucked away for decades, but no one knew it until now. This spring, communications professor Ed Carter unearthed the key to the mystery while digging through materials from the late Merlo J. Pusey, a Mormon Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist. "I came upon a notebook marked 'Confidential' and, obviously, I got excited," Carter said. "I wanted to find out what was in that notebook that Pusey didn't want to have publicly known." The unpublished notes of an interview with Justice Owen J. Roberts provide a previously unknown account for a landmark, left-shifting 1937 vote by the conservative Roberts. The vote is credited with subduing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's threat to increase the court to as many as 15 judges in order to move forward his New Deal legislation. It's called "the switch in time that saved nine," and it's a phrase legal scholars, lawyers and judicial junkies have long been familiar with. "It's just a marvelous, enormously important find," said University of Michigan law professor Richard D. Friedman, a Supreme Court history expert. "When Professor Carter sent the notes to me, I had a lot of work I should have been doing, but instead I read through the notes with great interest. It was just fascinating. I'm jealous because I wish I had found them."
The source material can be found at
The Green Bag (PDF). A fascinating read.
Posted by DaveH at September 8, 2012 2:28 PM