Charles Evans Whittaker: Difference between revisions

{{Short description|AmericanUS judgeSupreme Court justice from 1957 to 1962}}

| name = Charles Evans Whittaker

| image = Charles Whittaker.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Charles Evans Whittaker, {{circa|1956}}

| office = [[Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States]]

| term_start = March 2225, 1957<!--Term start date as per www.supremecourt.gov, reflects date oath taken-->

| term_end = March 31, 1962

| predecessorsuccessor = [[Stanley FormanByron ReedWhite]]

| successor1term_start2 = [[MarionJuly Charles8, Matthes]]1954

| footnotes =

'''Charles Evans Whittaker''' (February 22, 1901 – November 26, 1973) was an [[Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court]] from 1957 to 1962. After working in private practice in [[Kansas City, Missouri|Kansas City]], [[Missouri]], he was nominated for the [[United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri]]. In 1956, President [[Dwight D. Eisenhower]] nominated Whittaker to the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit]]. In 1957, he won confirmation to the [[Supreme Court of the United States]], thus becoming the first individual to serve as a judge on a federal district court, a federal court of appeals, and the United States Supreme Court. During his brief tenure on the [[Warren Court]], Whittaker emerged as a swing vote. In 1962, he sufferedhad a [[nervous breakdown]] and resigned from the Court. After leaving the Supreme Court, he served as chief counsel to [[General Motors]] and frequently criticized the [[Civil Rights Movement]] and the [[Warren Court]].

Whittaker was born on a farm near [[Troy, Kansas|Troy]], [[Kansas]] to Charles Edward Whittaker, a farmer, and Ida Eve Miller, a schoolteacher from [[Hagerstown, Maryland|Hagerstown]], [[Maryland]]. He attended the nearby one-room Brush Creek School, and then the [[Troy High School (Kansas)|Troy High School]] until he dropped out in the ninth grade after his mother died on his sixteenth birthday. He spent the next three years working on a family farm, and also hunting and trapping. Whittaker developed an interest in law by reading newspaper articles about criminal trials. In the summer of 1920, he applied to the part-time evening program at the Kansas City School of Law (currently the [[University of Missouri–Kansas City School of Law]]) and gained admission with the condition that he would finish his high school education after personally pleading with Oliver Dean, athe president of the law school. Immediately,He heimmediately enrolled at Manual High School in [[Kansas City, Missouri|Kansas City]], [[Missouri]]. Heand spent the next four years working during the day to support himself, and in the evenings waswhile taking high school coursesand aslaw wellschool ascourses classes atin the Kansas City School of Lawevenings. While Whittaker's waslaw aschool studentclassmates at the school,included future President [[Harry S. Truman]] was a classmate. Whittaker graduated in the class of 1924 with a [[Bachelor of Laws]] having been admitted to the Missouri bar during his senior year.<ref name="Smith">Smith, Craig A. [https://books.google.com/books?id=tjhMk0tEMxkC&lpg=PA269&ots=x4Hkf-jxou&dqq=Watson%2C%20Gage+Gage%2C%20Ess+Ess%2C%20Groner%20%26%20Barnett+Groner+&pg=PA15#v=onepage&q=Watson,%20Gage,%20Ess,%20Groner%20&f=false ''Failing Justice: Charles Evans Whittaker on the Supreme Court.''] Jefferson, N.C: McFarland & Company, 2005.</ref><ref name='fedjudcenter'>{{Cite web |url=https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/whittaker-charles-evans |title=Whittaker, Charles Evans &#124; Federal Judicial Center |access-date=November 9, 2018 |archive-date=November 9, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181109111935/https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/whittaker-charles-evans |url-status=live }}</ref> Whittaker joined the law firm of Watson, Ess, Marshall & Enggas in Kansas City, Missouri, where he previously worked full-time as an office boy, and built up a practice in [[corporate law]] with the [[Union Pacific Railroad]], [[Montgomery Ward]], and the City National Bank and Trust Company among his clients. He was a member of [[Tau Kappa Epsilon]] Fraternity and developed close ties to the [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican Party]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Distinguished Alumni |url=https://www.tke.org/about/distinguished-alumni |publisher=[[Tau Kappa Epsilon]] |access-date=November 11, 2023}}</ref>

Whittaker was nominated by President Eisenhower on March 16, 1956, to a seat on the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit]] vacated by Judge [[John Caskie Collet]]. He was confirmed by the Senate on June 4, 1956, and received his commission the next day. His service terminated on March 24, 1957, due to his elevation to the [[Supreme Court of the United States]].<ref name='fedjudcenter'/>

Effective September 30, 1965, Whittaker resigned his position as a retired Justice in order to become chief counsel to [[General Motors Corporation|General Motors]]. He also became a resolute critic of the [[Warren Court]] as well as the [[Civil Rights Movement]], characterizing the [[civil disobedience]] of the type practiced by [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] and his followers as lawless. He wrote a piece for the ''[[FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin]]'' that advised protesters to use courts instead of taking to the streets.<ref>Urofsky, Melvin I. [https://books.google.com/books?id=kv3uCgAAQBAJ&lpg=PA534&ots=51m3lT-zv1&dq=Whittaker%20%20article%20FBI%20Law%20Enforcement%20Bulletin&pg=PA534#v=onepage&q&f=false ''The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary.''] New York: Garland Pub, 1994.</ref> Whittaker died on November 26, 1973, at [[Saint Luke's Hospital (of Kansas City, Missouri)|St. Luke's Hospital]] in Kansas City, Missouri of a ruptured abdominal [[aneurysm]].<ref name="vindicate">[https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LiZKAAAAIBAJ&sjid=iYUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5071,5067075&dq=charles+whittaker+dies&hl=en "Charles Whittaker dies; On top court"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160312055612/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LiZKAAAAIBAJ&sjid=iYUMAAAAIBAJ&pg=5071,5067075&dq=charles+whittaker+dies&hl=en |date=March 12, 2016 }}, ''Youngstown Vindicator,'' 27 November 1973</ref><ref>"Former Justice Whittaker of Supreme Court is dead," ''The New York Times'', November 27, 1973.</ref>

In 1928, Whittaker married Winifred R. Pugh,. theyThey had three sons,: Dr. Charles Keith Whittaker, a neurosurgeon; Kent E. Whittaker, an attorney; and Gary T. Whittaker, a stockbroker.

*[[List of Justiceslaw clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 6)]]

*[[List of lawUnited clerks of theStates Supreme Court ofjustices theby Unitedtime Statesin office]]

*{{cite book|author=Smith, Craig Alan|title=Failing Justice: Charles Evans Whittaker On The Supreme Court|publisher=McFarland & Company, 2005|year=}}