Hugo Black

Hugo LaFayette Black (February 27, 1886 – September 25, 1971) was a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (1937 - 1971). He is noted for his advocacy of a "literal" reading of the United States Constitution, and for his advocacy of the position that the guarantees of liberties in the U.S. Bill of Rights were imposed on the states via their incorporation in the Fourteenth Amendment. His jurisprudence has been the focus of much discussion. Because of his insistence on a strict textual analysis of Constitutional issues, as opposed to the process-oriented jurisprudence of many of his colleagues, it is difficult to characterize Black as a "liberal" or a "conservative" as those terms are generally understood. Yet his theory of "incorporation" often translated into support for strengthening civil liberties. In the 1920's, Black (like Chief Justice Edward Douglass White) was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, and in 1921 he defended Klansmen accused of the murder of priest James Coyle. However, he later publicly disavowed the Klan, and his record on the Supreme Court bench contained some indications of support for the Civil Rights Movement.

Constitutional theories

Black believed that the first eight amendments to the United States Constitution had become applicable to the individual States by the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, and specifically the Privileges or Immunities Clause of Section 1 of that amendment. This view was very controversial and was vigorously challenged among proponents of federalism, including justices Felix Frankfurter and John Marshall Harlan II who insisted that Black's view was contrary to the original intention of the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment. Hugo Black began to seriously push his viewpoint via a long appendix attached to his dissent in Adamson v. California in 1947, which argued that the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment intended to make the Bill of Rights applicable to the states. His debate between Black and his critics remains unresolved and controversial, with conservative scholars such as Raoul Berger siding with Frankfurter and Harlan.

Related Topics:
United States Constitution - Fourteenth Amendment - Privileges or Immunities Clause - Felix Frankfurter - John Marshall Harlan II - Adamson v. California - 1947

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Black's views attracted the support of Justice William O. Douglas but were in a distinct minority on the Supreme Court. Most of the justices held the belief that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated some provisions of the Bill of Rights but not others. Frankfurter believed that the Fourteenth Amendment incorporated none of the Bill of Rights but only substantively prohibited government actions that "shock the conscience" or are "inherent in the concept of ordered liberty," as had been held in 1938's Palko v. Connecticut.

Related Topics:
William O. Douglas - Palko v. Connecticut

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While Black's position that the Bill of Rights had been incorporated against the states attracted some support, however, his view that the substantive meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment is limited to incorporating the Bill of Rights was adopted by no other justice. Thus, Black was the lone dissenter in 1971's In Re Winship, which declared that the Due Process Clause imposed on the prosecution a burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases.

Related Topics:
In Re Winship - Burden of proof

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During the anti-Communist McCarthy era of the 1950s, Black became known as a defender of First Amendment rights, perhaps most notably in his dissent in Dennis v. United States, 341 US 494 during 1951.

Related Topics:
Communist - McCarthy - 1950s - First Amendment - Dennis v. United States - 1951

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Black, however, took a narrow view of what constituted "speech" under the First Amendment. He dissented from the Court's decision in 1971's Cohen v. California which held that a person could not be punished for wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words "Fuck the Draft", an activity which Black considered conduct, not speech. Black also wrote the opinion in 1966's Adderley v. Florida, which controversially upheld a trespassing conviction of civil rights demonstrators.

Related Topics:
1971 - Cohen v. California

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He took a dim view of government entanglement with religious practice, and he wrote the Court's ground-breaking opinion on school prayer in the 1962 case of Engel v. Vitale.

Related Topics:
School prayer - 1962 - Engel v. Vitale

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Black wrote the unanimous opinion handed down in 1963's Gideon v. Wainwright, which guaranteed the right of all defendants to be represented by an attorney in state criminal trials. This had been the result of a decade-long crusade by Black after the Court ruled in Betts v. Brady that counsel was required only in state criminal trials involving "special needs" on the part of defendants.

Related Topics:
1963 - Gideon v. Wainwright - Betts v. Brady

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Black was noted for his consistent adherence to the theory that the text of the Constitution is absolutely determinative on any question calling for judicial interpretation. No other justice has adopted quite so dogmatic a view of the Constitution's text, leading to Black's reputation as a "strict constructionist."

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Thus, Black refused to join in the efforts of the justices on the Court who sought to abolish capital punishment in the United States, whose efforts succeeded (temporarily) in the term immediately following Black's death; Black claimed that the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment's reference to takings of "life" meant approval of the death penalty was implicit in the Bill of Rights. He also was not persuaded that a right of privacy was implicit in the Ninth Amendment, and dissented from the Court's 1965 Griswold v. Connecticut decision which invalidated a conviction for the sale of banned contraceptives. Black claimed that there was no "right of privacy" in the text of the Constitution.

Related Topics:
Capital punishment in the United States - Ninth Amendment - 1965 - Griswold v. Connecticut

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Although Black frequently supported civil rights during his tenure on the Court, especially towards the end of it, in some cases he did not. In addition to Korematsu, Black dissented in the 1966 case of Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, voting to uphold the constitutionality of state-imposed poll taxes which, though nominally race-neutral, had a disparate impact on African-American voters. The key to Black's position in all these cases was that there was no specific constitutional provision which restrained the governmental actions complained of.

Related Topics:
Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections - Poll taxes - African-American

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