YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS | What the justice system owes to 2 ‘Marshalls’

In its 232-year history, two of the 120 Justices confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court have been named Marshall. One, John Marshall, was chief justice from 1801 to 1835. The other, Thurgood Marshall, was named an associate justice in 1967 and served for 24 of the most tumultuous years in the nation’s history.

Aside from their names, the two had almost nothing in common. John, a white aristocrat from Virginia, fought in the Revolutionary War, was elected to Congress, and served as Secretary of State under President John Adams before joining the high court.

Thurgood, a descendant of slaves and child of a railroad porter and a teacher, grew up in Baltimore. After graduating from Lincoln University, a historically Black college, he enrolled in the Howard University School of Law because the institution he wanted to attend, the University of Maryland, did not admit Blacks. Shortly after graduating first in his class from Howard, Marshall joined the staff of the NAACP and eventually formed and led the group’s renowned Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Despite the massive gulf in their cultural, societal and economic backgrounds, the namesakes do share one thing: They both fundamentally reshaped the law and with it, the country.

John Marshall’s 1803 opinion in Marbury v. Madison, which established the federal judiciary’s power to strike down laws it viewed as unconstitutional is regarded by many to be the most important decision rendered in the history of American jurisprudence. Over the next 32 years, the Marshall court continued to issue rulings that established the federal government’s and the Constitution’s supremacy over the states.

While supporters of federalism, including the six Federalist Society acolytes who now dominate the Supreme Court, are intent on undoing much of Marshall’s work, his doctrines continue to serve as the foundation of America’s legal system.

Thurgood Marshall began to impact the law and society long before he was named to the high court by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Ironically and much to Marshall’s delight, he scored his first major victory in Murray v. Pearson, a Maryland Appellate Court case that forced the University of Maryland School of Law to admit Black students.

In 1940, at the age of 32, he argued and won his first case before the Supreme Court, Chambers v. Florida. The decision set aside the murder convictions of four African-Americans whose confessions had been coerced by the police. Over the next 15 years he racked up 29 victories before the court including Smith v. Allwright, Shelley v. Kraemer, Sweatt v. Painter, and, in 1954, Brown v. Board of Education, in which Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren noted, that “separate but equal” has no place in public education. The landmark decision was the first to expose the fallacy of the “separate but equal” doctrine established in Plessy v. Ferguson, which spawned the shameful Jim Crow era in the United States.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed him to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals over the objection of a group of Southern senators. In 1965, President Johnson named him solicitor general, making him the highest-ranking Black government official in American history. During his tenure, he won 14 of the 19 cases he argued, including Miranda v. Arizona.

When LBJ nominated Marshall to the Supreme Court in 1967, he remarked that it was “the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place.” For the next 24 years, Marshall proved Johnson right. He was a tireless advocate for civil, human, individual and women’s rights, opposed the death penalty and supported unions. His judicial philosophy was profound and succinct: “You do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”

Unfortunately, the conservative majority on the court is not catching up with Marshall, they are falling farther and farther behind, which imperils the future of the America that the two Marshalls built over nearly two centuries of sound jurisprudence.

— Attorney David Betras, a senior partner at Betras, Kopp & Markota LLC., directs the firm’s non-litigation activities and practices criminal defense law in both the state and federal courts. He has practiced law for 35 years. Have a legal question you’d like answered here? Send it to news@mahoningmatters.com.