Editing Earl Warren (section)

==Chief Justice of the United States==
{{Further|Warren Court|List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Warren Court}}
[[File:EarlWarren.jpg|thumb|Chief Justice Earl Warren]]

===Appointment===
After the 1952 election, President-elect Eisenhower promised that he would appoint Warren to the next vacancy on the [[Supreme Court of the United States]]. Warren turned down the position of [[United States Secretary of the Interior|Secretary of the Interior]] in the new administration, but in August 1953 he agreed to serve as the [[Solicitor General of the United States|Solicitor General]].{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=246–249}} In September 1953, before Warren's nomination as solicitor general was announced, Chief Justice [[Fred M. Vinson]] died.{{sfn|Abraham|1992|p=255}} To fill the critical position of chief justice, Eisenhower first offered the position of chief justice to [[Thomas E. Dewey]], but Dewey declined the offer. He then considered either elevating a sitting Supreme Court justice or appointing another individual with judicial experience but ultimately chose to honor his promise to appoint Warren to the first Supreme Court vacancy.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=250–253}} Explaining Warren's qualifications for the Court, Eisenhower wrote to his brother, "Warren has had seventeen years of practice in public law, during which his record was one of remarkable accomplishment and success.... He has been very definitely a liberal-conservative; he represents the kind of political, economic, and social thinking that I believe we need on the Supreme Court."{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=261–262}}

Warren received a [[recess appointment]] in October 1953. In the winter of 1953–1954, the [[Senate Judiciary Committee]] reported him favorably by a 12–3 majority, with three southerners in [[James Eastland]], [[Olin D. Johnston]] and [[Harley M. Kilgore]] reporting negatively.<ref>{{cite news|title=Vote Is 12 to 3: Senate Unit Backs Warren Nomination|newspaper=[[The Washington Post]]|location=[[Washington, D.C.|Washington, District of Columbia]]|date=February 25, 1954|page=1}}</ref> The Senate would then confirm Warren's appointment by acclamation in March 1954;{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=289–290}} unlike the future appointments of [[John Marshall Harlan II]] and [[Potter Stewart]] (who ironically would prove the most conservative members of the Warren Court) southern senators made no effort to block Warren.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Kahn|first=Michael A.|date=1992|title=Shattering the Myth about President Eisenhower's Supreme Court Appointments |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/27550903 |journal=Presidential Studies Quarterly|volume=22|issue=1|pages=47–56|jstor=27550903 }}</ref> As of 2024, Warren is the most recent chief justice to have held statewide elected office at any point in his career and the most recent serving politician to be appointed Chief Justice. Warren was also the first [[Nordic and Scandinavian Americans|Scandinavian American]] to be appointed to the Supreme Court.<ref name="Collective">Schmidhauser, John Richard; ‘The Justices of the Supreme Court: A Collective Portrait’; ''[[Midwest Journal of Political Science]]''; vol. 3, no. 1 (February 1959), pp. 1-57</ref>

===Leadership and philosophy===
[[File:Warren Supreme Court.jpg|thumb|The [[Warren Court]] (1953–1954)]]

When Warren was appointed, all of the other Supreme Court justices had been appointed by Presidents [[Franklin Roosevelt]] or Harry Truman, and most were committed [[New Deal coalition|New Deal]] liberal Democrats. Nonetheless, they disagreed about the role that courts should play. [[Felix Frankfurter]] led a faction that insisted upon [[judicial restraint|judicial self-restraint]] and deference to the policymaking prerogatives of the White House and Congress. [[Hugo Black]] and [[William O. Douglas]] led the opposing faction by agreeing the Court should defer to Congress in matters of economic policy but favored a more activist role for the courts in matters related to individual liberties. Warren's belief that the judiciary must seek to do justice placed him with the Black and Douglas faction.{{sfn|Belknap|2005|pp=13–14}} [[William J. Brennan Jr.]] became the intellectual leader of the activist faction after he was appointed to the court by Eisenhower in 1956 and complemented Warren's political skills by the strong legal skills that Warren lacked.{{sfn|Hutchinson|1983}}{{page needed|date=November 2018}}

As chief justice, Warren's most important prerogative was the power to assign opinions if he was in the majority. That power had a subtle but important role in shaping the Court's majority opinions, since different justices would write different opinions.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=268–270}} Warren initially asked the senior associate justice, Hugo Black, to preside over conferences until he became accustomed to the processes of the Court. However, Warren learned quickly and soon was in fact, as well as in name, the Court's chief justice.{{sfn|White|1982|pp=159–161}} Warren's strength lay in his public gravitas, his leadership skills, and his firm belief that the Constitution guaranteed natural rights and that the Court had a unique role in protecting those rights.{{sfn|Urofsky|2001|p=157}}{{sfn|Powe|2000|pp=499–500}} His arguments did not dominate judicial conferences, but Warren excelled at putting together coalitions and cajoling his colleagues in informal meetings.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=445–446}}

Warren saw the US Constitution as the embodiment of American values, and he cared deeply about the ethical implications of the Court's rulings.{{Sfn|White|1981|pp=462–463}} According to Justice [[Potter Stewart]], Warren's philosophical foundations were the "eternal, rather bromidic, platitudes in which he sincerely believed" and "Warren's great strength was his simple belief in the things we now laugh at: motherhood, marriage, family, flag, and the like."{{sfn|Hutchinson|1983|p=927}} The constitutional historian Melvin I. Urofsky concludes that "scholars agree that as a judge, Warren does not rank with [[Louis Brandeis]], Black, or Brennan in terms of jurisprudence. His opinions were not always clearly written, and his legal logic was often muddled."<ref>{{cite book|first=Melvin I.|last=Urofsky|chapter=Warren, Earl|title=Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 9|year=1994|page=838}}</ref> Other scholars have also reached this conclusion.<ref>{{cite book|first=Lawrence S.|last=Wrightsman|title=The Psychology of the Supreme Court|year=2006|page=211}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|first=Priscilla Machado|last=Zotti|title=Injustice for All: Mapp vs. Ohio and the Fourth Amendment|year=2005|page=11}}</ref>

===1950s===
{{see also|Presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower|History of the United States (1945–1964)}}

====''Brown v. Board of Education''====
Soon after joining the Court, Warren presided over the case of ''[[Brown v. Board of Education]]'', which arose from the [[NAACP]]'s legal challenge against [[Jim Crow laws]]. The [[Southern United States]] had implemented Jim Crow laws in aftermath of the [[Reconstruction Era]] to [[disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era|disenfranchise]] African Americans and [[racial segregation in the United States|segregate]] public schools and other institutions. In the 1896 case of ''[[Plessy v. Ferguson]]'', the Court had held that the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] did not prohibit segregation in public institutions if the institutions were "[[separate but equal]]." In the decades after ''Plessy'', the NAACP had won several incremental victories, but 17 states required the segregation of public schools by 1954. In 1951, the Vinson Court had begun hearing the NAACP's legal challenge to segregated school systems but had not rendered a decision when Warren took office.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=274–278}}

By the early 1950s, Warren had become personally convinced that segregation was morally wrong and legally indefensible. Warren sought not only to overturn ''Plessy'' but also to have a unanimous verdict. Warren, Black, Douglas, Burton, and Minton supported overturning the precedent, but for different reasons, [[Robert H. Jackson]], [[Felix Frankfurter]], [[Tom C. Clark]], and [[Stanley Forman Reed]] were reluctant to overturn ''Plessy''.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=277–281}} Nonetheless, Warren won over Jackson, Frankfurter, and Clark, in part by allowing states and federal courts the flexibility to pursue desegregation of schools at different speeds. Warren extensively courted the last holdout, Reed, who finally agreed to join a unanimous verdict because he feared that a dissent would encourage resistance to the Court's holding. After the Supreme Court formally voted to hold that the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional, Warren drafted an eight-page outline from which his law clerks drafted an opinion, and the Court handed down its decision in May 1954.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=283–286}} In the Deep South at the time, people could view signs claiming "[[Federal impeachment in the United States|Impeach]] Earl Warren."<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Bethune |first=Brett |date=July 2022 |title=Influence Without Impeachment: How the Impeach Earl Warren Movement Began, Faltered, But Avoided Irrelevance |journal=Journal of Supreme Court History |language=en |volume=47 |issue=2 |pages=142–161 |doi=10.1111/jsch.12295 |issn=1059-4329|doi-access=free }}</ref>

====Other decisions and events====
In arranging a unanimous decision in ''Brown'', Warren fully established himself as the leader of the Court.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=287–288}} He also remained a nationally prominent figure. After a 1955 [[Gallup (company)|Gallup]] poll found that a plurality of Republican respondents favored Warren as the successor to Eisenhower, Warren publicly announced that he would not resign from the Court under any circumstance. Eisenhower seriously considered retiring after one term and encouraging Warren to run in the [[1956 United States presidential election|1956 presidential election]] but ultimately chose to run after he had received a positive medical report after his heart attack.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=312–315}} Despite that brief possibility, a split developed between Eisenhower and Warren, and some writers believe that Eisenhower once remarked that his appointment was "the biggest damn fool mistake I ever made."<ref>{{cite news|last=Purdum|first=Todd S.|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/politics/politicsspecial1/presidents-picking-justices-can-have-backfires.html|title=Presidents, Picking Justices, Can Have Backfires|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=July 5, 2005|access-date=June 15, 2015}}</ref>{{efn|Eisenhower biographer Jean Edward Smith concluded in 2012 that "Eisenhower never said that. I have no evidence that he ever made such a statement."<ref>{{cite book|first=Jean Edward|last=Smith|title=Eisenhower in War and Peace|year=2012|publisher=Random House|page=603N}}</ref> Nonetheless, Eisenhower privately expressed his displeasure regarding some of Warren's decisions, and Warren grew frustrated at Eisenhower's unwillingness to support the Court publicly in ''Brown''. Warren was recorded in the 1957 diary of Justice Harold Burton as confiding in Burton that "[Eisenhower] expressed disappointment at the trend of decisions of Chief Justice and Brennan."<ref>[https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1997-09-07-1997250003-story.html Anecdotes are dangerous to biographers and truth Mistakes: When essential little stories are distorted, vast damage is done.]</ref> In 1961, when Eisenhower was asked whether he had made any major mistakes as president, the former president responded that "yes, two, and they are both sitting on the Supreme Court."{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=336–337}}}}

Meanwhile, many Southern politicians expressed outrage at the Court's decisions and promised to resist any federal attempt to force desegregation, a strategy known as [[massive resistance]]. Although ''Brown'' did not mandate immediate school desegregation or bar other "separate but equal" institutions, most observers recognized that the decision marked the beginning of the end for the Jim Crow system.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=290–291}} Throughout his years as chief justice, Warren succeeded in keeping decisions concerning segregation unanimous. ''Brown'' applied only to schools, but soon, the Court enlarged the concept to other state actions by striking down racial classification in many areas. Warren compromised by agreeing to Frankfurter's demand for the Court to go slowly in implementing desegregation. Warren used Frankfurter's suggestion for a 1955 decision (''Brown II'') to include the phrase "all deliberate speed."<ref>{{cite journal|first=Robert L.|last=Carter|title=The Warren Court and Desegregation|journal=[[Michigan Law Review|Mich. L. Rev.]]|volume=67|issue=2|date=December 1968|pages=237–248|jstor=1287417|doi=10.2307/1287417|url=https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4901&context=mlr}}</ref> In 1956, after the [[Montgomery bus boycott]], the Supreme Court [[Browder v. Gayle|affirmed a lower court's decision]] that segregated buses are unconstitutional.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|p=320}} Two years later, Warren assigned Brennan to write the Court's opinion in ''[[Cooper v. Aaron]]''. Brennan held that state officials were legally bound to enforce the Court's desegregation ruling in ''Brown''.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=345–348}}

In the 1956 term, the Warren Court received condemnation from [[right-wing politics|right-wingers]] such as US Senator [[Joseph McCarthy]] by handing down a series of decisions, including ''[[Yates v. United States]]'', which struck down laws designed to suppress communists and later led to the decline of [[McCarthyism]].<ref name=":6">{{Cite web|url=https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/43mam8fk9780252037009.html|title=UI Press {{!}} Robert M. Lichtman {{!}} The Supreme Court and McCarthy-Era Repression: One Hundred Decisions|last=Lichtman|first=Robert M.|website=www.press.uillinois.edu|language=en|access-date=September 19, 2019}}</ref><ref name=":4">{{Cite web|url=https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1370/earl-warren|title=Earl Warren|last=Pederson|first=William D.|website=www.mtsu.edu|language=en|access-date=September 15, 2019}}</ref> The Warren Court's decisions on those cases represented a major shift from the [[Vinson Court]], which had generally upheld such laws during the [[Second Red Scare]].<ref name=":6" />{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=320–322, 329–333}} That same year, Warren was elected to the [[American Philosophical Society]]. In 1957, he was elected to the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Earl Warren |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/earl-warren |access-date=January 10, 2023 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en}}</ref>

===1960s===
{{see also|Presidency of John F. Kennedy|Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson|History of the United States (1964–1980)}}
[[File:President & First Lady Kennedy with Chief Justice Earl Warren & Mrs. Warren, circa 1962.jpg|thumb|President Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Chief Justice Earl Warren, and Nina Elisabeth Meyers (Warren's wife), November 1963]]

After the Republican Party nominated Richard Nixon in the [[1960 United States presidential election|1960 presidential election]], Warren privately supported the Democratic nominee, [[John F. Kennedy]]. They became personally close after Kennedy was inaugurated. Warren later wrote that "no American during my long life ever set his sights higher for a better America or centered his attacks more accurately on the evils and shortcomings of our society than did [Kennedy]."{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=368–369}} In 1962, Frankfurter retired and was replaced by Kennedy appointee [[Arthur Goldberg]], which gave the liberal bloc a majority on the Court.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=385–386, 403}} Goldberg left the Court in 1965 but was replaced by [[Abe Fortas]], who largely shared Goldberg's judicial philosophy.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=444–445}} With the liberal bloc firmly in control, the Warren Court handed down a series of momentous rulings in the 1960s.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|p=447}}

====Bill of Rights====
The 1960s marked a major shift in constitutional interpretation, as the Warren Court continued the process of the [[incorporation of the Bill of Rights]] in which the provisions of the first ten amendments to the US Constitution were applied to the states.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=530–531}}{{efn|The original Bill of Rights did not apply to the states, but the Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, contains the [[Due Process Clause]], which applies to state governments and has been used by the Court to incorporate the Bill of Rights. Some, including Douglas, favored the total incorporation of the Bill of Rights, but the Court has selectively incorporated various provisions of the Bill of Rights across numerous cases. The first major incorporation case was ''[[Gitlow v. New York]]'' (1925).{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=373–375, 405, 530}}}} Warren saw the Bill of Rights as a codification of "the natural rights of man" against the government and believed that incorporation would bring the law "into harmony with moral principles."{{Sfn|White|1981|pp=469–470}} When Warren took office, most of the provisions of the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]] already applied to the states, but the vast majority of the Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government. The Warren Court saw the incorporation of the remaining provisions of the First Amendment as well as all or part of the [[Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourth]], [[Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifth]], [[Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Sixth]], and [[Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Eighth]] Amendments. The Warren Court also handed down numerous other important decisions regarding the Bill of Rights, especially in the field of criminal procedure.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=530–531}}

In ''[[New York Times Co. v. Sullivan]]'', the Supreme Court reversed a libel conviction of the publisher of the ''New York Times''. In the majority opinion, Brennan articulated the [[actual malice]] standard for libel against public officials, which has become an enduring part of constitutional law.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=438–440}} In ''[[Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District]]'', the Court reversed the suspension of an eighth-grade student who wore a black armband in protest of the [[Vietnam War]]. Fortas's majority opinion noted that students did not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate."{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=490–491}} The Court's holding in ''[[United States v. Seeger]]'' expanded those who could be classified as [[conscientious objectors]] under the [[Selective Service System]] by allowing nonreligious individuals with ethical objections to claim conscientious objector status.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=481–483}} Another case, ''[[United States v. O'Brien]]'', saw the Court uphold a prohibition against [[draft-card burning|burning draft-cards]].{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=485–487}} Warren dissented in ''[[Street v. New York]]'' in which the Court struck down a state law that prohibited the desecration of the [[American flag]]. When his law clerks asked why he dissented in the case, Warren stated, "Boys, it's the American flag. I'm just not going to vote in favor of burning the American flag."{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=491–492}} In the 1969 case of ''[[Brandenburg v. Ohio]]'', the Court held that governments cannot punish speech unless it is "directed to inciting or producing [[imminent lawless action]] and is likely to incite or produce such action."{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=502–503}}

[[File:Impeach Warren.png|thumb|right|An "Impeach Earl Warren sign", posted in San Francisco in October 1958]]

In 1962, ''[[Engel v. Vitale]]'' held that the [[Establishment Clause]] prohibits mandatory prayer in public school.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=386–387}} The ruling sparked a strong backlash from many political and religious leaders, some of whom called for the impeachment of Warren. Warren became a favored target of right-wing groups, such as the [[John Birch Society]], as well as the [[1964 United States presidential election|1964 Republican presidential nominee]], [[Barry Goldwater]].{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=387–391, 435}} ''Engel'', the criminal procedure cases, and the persistent criticism of conservative politicians like Goldwater and Nixon contributed to a decline in the Court's popularity in the mid- and the late 1960s.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|p=498}} ''[[Griswold v. Connecticut]]'' had the Court strike down a state law designed to restrict access to [[contraception]], and it established a constitutional [[right to privacy]]. ''Griswold'' later provided an important precedent for the case of ''[[Roe v. Wade]]'', which disallowed many laws designed to restrict access to [[abortion in the United States|abortion]].{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=447–449}}

====Criminal procedure====
In the early 1960s, the Court increasingly turned its attention to criminal procedure, which had traditionally been primarily a domain of the states. In ''[[Elkins v. United States]]'' (1960), Warren joined with the majority in striking down the "Silver Platter Doctrine," a loophole to the [[exclusionary rule]] that had allowed federal officials to use evidence that had been illegally gathered by state officials. The next year, in ''[[Mapp v. Ohio]]'', the Court held that the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on "unreasonable searches and seizures" applied to state officials.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=372–376}} Warren wrote the majority opinion in ''[[Terry v. Ohio]]'' (1968) in which the Court established that police officers may frisk a criminal suspect if they have a [[reasonable suspicion]] that the suspect is committing or is about to commit a crime.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=466–468}} In ''[[Gideon v. Wainwright]]'' (1962), the Court held that the Sixth Amendment required states to furnish publicly funded attorneys to all criminal defendants accused of a [[felony]] and unable to afford counsel. Prior to ''Gideon'', criminal defendants had been guaranteed the right to counsel only in federal trials and [[capital punishment|capital]] cases.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=403–406}}

In ''[[Escobedo v. Illinois]]'' (1964), the Court held that the Sixth Amendment guarantees criminal suspects the right to speak to their counsel during police interrogations. ''Escobedo'' was limited to criminal suspects who had an attorney at the time of their arrest and requested to speak with that counsel. In the landmark case of ''[[Miranda v. Arizona]]'', Warren wrote the majority opinion, which established a right to counsel for every criminal suspect and required police to give criminal suspects what became known as a "[[Miranda warning]]" in which suspects are notified of their right to an attorney and their [[right to silence]]. Warren incorporated some suggestions from Brennan, but his holding in ''Miranda'' was most influenced by his past experiences as a district attorney. Unlike many of the other Warren Court decisions, including ''Mapp'' and ''Gideon'', ''Miranda'' created standards that went far beyond anything that had been established by any of the states. ''Miranda'' received a strong backlash from law enforcement and political leaders.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=456–460}} Conservatives angrily denounced what they called the "handcuffing of the police."<ref>{{cite book|editor1-first=Ronald|editor1-last=Kahn|editor2-first=Ken I.|editor2-last=Kersch|title=The Supreme Court and American Political Development|year=2006|url=https://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0700614397?keywords=miranda%20%26%2334%3Bcrime%20rates%26%2334%3B&p=S04N&checkSum=%252FyIgYm2ybgibk6P%252BM%252FG9LcucFd6ieUBSkCM%252FVsFiLs0%253D|page=442|publisher=University Press of Kansas |isbn=978-0-7006-1439-4 }}</ref>

====Reapportionment (one man, one vote)====
{{quote box
| quote  =  The right to vote freely for the candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society, and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative government. And the right of suffrage can be denied by a debasement or dilution of the weight of a citizen's vote just as effectively as by wholly prohibiting the free exercise of the franchise.| source =
--[[Chief Justice of the United States|Chief Justice]] Earl Warren on [[Suffrage|the right to vote]] as the foundation of [[democracy]] in ''[[Reynolds v. Sims]]'' (1964).<ref>{{cite web |title=''Reynolds v. Sims'', 377 U.S. 533 (1964), at 555. |url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/377/533/ |publisher=Justia US Supreme Court Center |access-date=January 5, 2021 |date=June 15, 1964}}</ref>
| width  = 27%
| align  = right
| style = padding:8px;
}}

In 1959, several residents dissatisfied with Tennessee's legislative districts brought suit against the state in ''[[Baker v. Carr]]''. Like many other states, Tennessee had state legislative districts of unequal populations,{{efn|The [[Vermont General Assembly]] provides one example of the disparity in populations. In 1961, one member of the Vermont General Assembly represented 33,000 people, and another member represented 49 people.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|p=380}}}} and the plaintiffs sought more equitable legislative districts. In ''[[Colegrove v. Green]]'' (1946), the Supreme Court had declined to become involved in legislative apportionment and instead left the issue as a matter for Congress and the states. In ''[[Gomillion v. Lightfoot]]'' (1960), the Court struck down a redistricting plan designed to disenfranchise African-American voters, but many of the justices were reluctant to involve themselves further in redistricting.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=379–381}} Frankfurter insisted that the Court should avoid the "political thicket" of apportionment and warned that the Court would never be able to find a clear formula to guide lower courts.<ref>{{cite journal|first=James A.|last=Gazell|title=One Man, One Vote: Its Long Germination|journal=[[The Western Political Quarterly]]|volume=23|issue=3|date=September 1970|pages=445–462|jstor=446565|doi=10.1177/106591297002300301|s2cid=154022059}}</ref> Warren helped convince Associate Justice [[Potter Stewart]] to join Brennan's majority decision in ''Baker v. Carr'', which held that redistricting was not a [[political question]] and so federal courts had jurisdiction over the issue. The opinion did not directly require Tennessee to implement redistricting but instead left it to a federal district court to determine whether Tennessee's districts violated the Constitution.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=381–385}} In another case, ''[[Gray v. Sanders]]'', the Court struck down Georgia's [[County Unit System]], which granted disproportional power to rural counties in party primaries.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=406–407}} In a third case, ''[[Wesberry v. Sanders]]'', the Court required states to draw congressional districts of equal population.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|p=433}}

In ''[[Reynolds v. Sims]]'' (1963), the chief justice wrote what biographer Ed Cray terms "the most influential of the 170 majority opinions [Warren] would write." While eight of the nine justices had voted to require congressional districts of equal population in ''Wesberry'', some of the justices were reluctant to require state legislative districts to be of equal population. Warren indicated that the [[Equal Protection Clause]] required that state legislative districts be apportioned on an equal basis: "legislators represent people, not trees or acres. Legislators are elected by voters, not farms or cities or economic interests." His holding upheld the principle of "[[one man, one vote]]," which had previously been articulated by Douglas.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=432–435}} After the decision, the states reapportioned their legislatures quickly and with minimal troubles. Numerous commentators have concluded reapportionment was the Warren Court's great "success story."<ref>{{cite journal|first=Robert B.|last=McKay|title=Reapportionment: Success Story of the Warren Court|journal=[[Michigan Law Review|Mich. L. Rev.]]|volume=67|issue=2|date=December 1968|pages=223–236|jstor=1287416|doi=10.2307/1287416|url=https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4900&context=mlr}}</ref>

====Civil rights====
{{see also|Civil rights movement}}

Civil rights continued to be a major issue facing the Warren Court in the 1960s. In ''Peterson v. Greenville'' (1963), Warren wrote the Court's majority opinion, which struck down local ordinances that prohibited restaurants from serving black and white individuals in the same room.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=408–410}} Later that decade, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] in ''[[Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States]]''. The Court held that the [[Commerce Clause]] empowered the federal government to prohibit racial segregation in [[public accommodations]] like hotels. The ruling effectively overturned the 1883 ''[[Civil Rights Cases]]'' in which the Supreme Court had held that Congress could not regulate racial discrimination by private businesses.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=441–442}} The Court upheld another landmark civil rights act, the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]], by holding that it was valid under the authority provided to Congress by the [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]].{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=469–470}}

In 1967, Warren wrote the majority opinion in the landmark case of ''[[Loving v. Virginia]]'' in which the Court struck down state [[Anti-miscegenation laws in the United States|laws banning interracial marriage]]. Warren was particularly pleased by the ruling in ''Loving'' since he had long regretted that the Court had not taken up the similar case of ''[[Naim v. Naim]]'' in 1955.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=449–452}} In ''[[Harper v. Virginia State Board of Elections]]'' (1966), the Court struck down [[poll taxes in the United States|poll taxes]] in state elections.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=470–471}} In another case, ''[[Bond v. Floyd]]'', the Court required the Georgia legislature to seat the newly elected legislator [[Julian Bond]]; members of the legislature had refused to seat Bond because he opposed the [[Vietnam War]].{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=484–485}}

====Warren Commission====
{{main|Warren Commission}}
[[File:Lbj-wc.jpg|thumb|Earl Warren presents the Commission's report to President Johnson on September 24, 1964.]]

Shortly after the [[assassination of John F. Kennedy]], the newly sworn-in president, [[Lyndon B. Johnson]], convinced Warren to serve as the head of a bipartisan commission tasked with investigating the assassination.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Katzenbach, Nicholas deB. (Nicholas deBelleville), 1922-2012.|title=Some of it was fun : working with RFK and LBJ|date=October 17, 2008|isbn=978-0-393-07068-2|edition=First|location=New York|pages=135|oclc=915999588}}</ref>  From December 1963 to October 1964, Warren simultaneously served as chief justice of the United States and chairman of the [[Warren Commission]].{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=414–419}} Warren originally declined to head the Commission due to his belief that a sitting-Chief Justice should not be involved in non-judicial work, however when Johnson told him that he feared war would break out with the Soviet Union Warren changed his mind.<ref>{{cite news |title=Johnson Feared War At Kennedy Death, Earl Warren Says |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1972/12/09/archives/johnson-feared-war-at-kennedy-death-earl-warren-says.html |work=The New York Times |date=9 December 1972}}</ref>

At the start of the investigation, Warren decided to hire the commission's legal staff from outside the government to avoid any improper influence on their work.{{sfn|Willens|2013|p=37}}  Warren appointed [[J. Lee Rankin|Lee Rankin]] as general counsel and worked closely with Rankin and his assistants, [[Howard P. Willens]] and [[Norman Redlich]], to recruit staff lawyers, supervise their investigation and publish the Commission's report.{{sfn|Willens|2013|p=37}}  To avoid the confusion and duplication of parallel investigations, Warren convinced the Texas authorities to defer any local inquiry into the assassination.{{sfn|Willens|2013|loc=p. 30, citing Warren Commission, Executive Session Transcript, December 6, 1963, at 14-18}}

Warren was personally involved in several aspects of the investigation.  He supervised four days of testimony by Lee Harvey Oswald's widow, [[Marina Oswald Porter|Marina Oswald]], and was widely criticized for telling the press that, although her testimony would be publicly disclosed, "it might not be in your lifetime."{{sfn|Willens|2013|loc=p. 60, citing The Baltimore Sun, "The Whole Truth", February 5, 1964.}} He attended the closed-door interview of [[Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis|Jacqueline Kennedy]]<ref>{{Cite book|last=Specter, Arlen.|title=Passion for truth : from finding JFK's single bullet to questioning Anita Hill to impeaching Clinton|date=2001|publisher=Perennial|others=Robbins, Charles.|isbn=0-06-095810-3|edition=1st Perennial|location=New York|pages=106–08|oclc=49301736}}</ref> and insisted on participating in the deposition of [[Jack Ruby]] in Dallas, where he visited the book depository.{{sfn|Willens|2013|pp=206-07}} Warren also participated in the investigation of Kennedy's medical treatment and autopsy.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Belin|first=David W.|title=November 22, 1963: You Are the Jury|publisher=Quadrangle|year=1973|pages=345–47}}</ref> At [[Robert F. Kennedy|Robert Kennedy]]'s insistence, Warren handled the unwelcome task of reviewing the autopsy photos alone.{{sfn|Willens|2013|p=94}}  Because the photos were so gruesome, Warren decided that they should not be included in the Commission's records.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Bugliosi, Vincent.|title=Reclaiming history : the assassination of President John F. Kennedy|date=May 17, 2007|isbn=978-0-393-07212-9|edition=First|location=New York|pages=426–27|oclc=916036483}}</ref>

Warren closely supervised the drafting of the Commission's report. He wanted to ensure that Commission members had ample opportunity to evaluate the staff's work and to make their own judgments about important conclusions in the report.{{sfn|Willens|2013|p=219}} He insisted that the report should be unanimous and so he compromised on a number of issues to get all the members to sign the final version. Although a reenactment of the assassination "produced convincing evidence" supporting the single-bullet theory, the Commission decided not to take a position on the single-bullet theory.{{sfn|Willens|2013|p=270}}<ref>Bugliosi, ''Reclaiming History'', pp. 456-57.</ref> The Commission unanimously concluded that the assassination was the result of a single individual, [[Lee Harvey Oswald]], who acted alone.<ref>Newton, ''Justice for All'', pp. 415-23, 431-42.</ref>

The Warren Commission was an unhappy experience for the chief justice. As Willens recalled, "One can't say too much about the Chief's sacrifice. The work was a drain on his physical well-being."<ref>Cray, ''Chief Justice'', p. 429.</ref> However, Warren always believed that the Commission's primary conclusion, that Oswald acted alone, was correct. In his memoirs, Warren wrote that Oswald was incapable of being the key operative in a conspiracy, and that any high-level government conspiracy would inevitably have been discovered.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Warren|first=Earl|title=The memoirs of chief justice Earl Warren.|date=2001|publisher=Madison Books|isbn=1-56833-234-3|edition=1st Madison books|location=Lanham, Md.|pages=364–67|oclc=49302082}}</ref> ''Newsweek'' magazine quoted Warren saying that, if he handled the Oswald case as a district attorney, "I could have gotten a conviction in two days and never heard about the case again."<ref>Cray, ''Chief Justice'', p. 422.</ref> Warren wrote that "the facts of the assassination itself are simple, so simple that many people believe it must be more complicated and conspiratorial to be true."{{Sfn|Cray|1997|p=422}}  Warren told the Commission staff not to worry about [[John F. Kennedy assassination conspiracy theories|conspiracy theories]] and other criticism of the report because “history will prove us right.”{{sfn|Willens|2013|p=11}}

===Retirement===
[[File:Richard Nixon 1969 inauguration.png|thumb|upright=1|Chief Justice Warren swears in President Nixon on January 20, 1969.]]

By 1968, Warren was ready to retire from the Court. He hoped to travel the world with his wife, and he wanted to leave the bench before he suffered a mental decline, something that he perceived in both Hugo Black and William Douglas. He also feared that Nixon would win the [[1968 United States presidential election|1968 presidential election]] and appoint a conservative successor if Warren left the Court later. On June 13, 1968, Warren submitted his letter of resignation to President Johnson (who made it official on June 21),<ref>[https://theconversation.com/filling-the-supreme-court-vacancy-lessons-from-1968-55010] and [https://slicethelife.com/2018/06/21/it-was-fifty-years-ago-today-june-21-1968-chief-justice-of-the-u-s-supreme-court-earl-warren-announces-his-retirement]</ref> effective upon the confirmation of a successor. In an election year, confirmation of a successor was not assured; after Warren announced his retirement, about half of the Senate Republican caucus pledged to oppose any Supreme Court appointment prior to the election.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=494–499}}

Johnson nominated Associate Justice Fortas, a personal friend and adviser to the president, as Warren's successor, and nominated federal appellate judge [[Homer Thornberry]] to succeed Fortas. Republicans and Southern Democrats joined to scuttle Fortas's nomination. Their opposition centered on criticism of the Warren Court, including many decisions that had been handed down before Fortas joined the Court, as well as ethical concerns related to Fortas's paid speeches and closeness with Johnson. Though the majority of the Senate may have favored the confirmation of Fortas, opponents conducted a [[filibuster in the United States Senate|filibuster]], which blocked the Senate from voting on the nomination, and Johnson withdrew the nomination.{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=499–502}} In early 1969, Warren learned that Fortas had made a secret lifetime contract for $20,000 a year to provide private legal advice to [[Louis Wolfson]], a friend and financier in deep legal trouble. Warren immediately asked Fortas to resign, which he did after some consideration.<ref>{{cite journal|first=Artemus|last=Ward|title=An Extraconstitutional Arrangement: Lyndon Johnson and the Fall of the Warren Court|journal=White House Studies|year=2002|volume=2|issue=2|pages=171–183}}</ref>

Nixon defeated [[Hubert Humphrey]] in the 1968 presidential election and took office in January 1969. Though reluctant to be succeeded by a Nixon appointee, Warren declined to withdraw his letter of resignation. He believed that withdrawing the letter would be "a crass admission that he was resigning for political reasons." Nixon and Warren jointly agreed that Warren would retire in June 1969 to ensure that the Court would have a chief justice throughout the 1968 term and to allow Nixon to focus on other matters in the first months of [[presidency of Richard Nixon|his presidency]].{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=502–505}} Nixon did not solicit Warren's opinion regarding the next chief justice and ultimately appointed the conservative federal appellate judge [[Warren E. Burger]].{{Sfn|Cray|1997|pp=513–514}} Warren later regretted his decision to retire and reflected, "If I had ever known what was going to happen to this country and this Court, I never would have resigned. They would have had to carry me out of there on a plank."{{sfn|Hutchinson|1983|p=928n23}} In addition, he later remarked on his retirement and on the Warren Court, "I would like the Court to be remembered as the people's court."<ref name=":10" />