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George Sutherland

 
US Supreme Court: George Sutherland

(b. Buckinghamshire, England, 15 March 1862; d. Stockbridge, Mass., 18 July 1942; interred Cedar Hill Cemetery, Washington, D.C.), associate justice, 1922–1938. George Sutherland's appointment to the Supreme Court by President Warren G. Harding on 5 September 1922 was expected, since his name had been mentioned for the position as early as 1910. A strong conservative, he remained on the Court long enough to witness the demise of substantive due process, a doctrine that had become almost synonymous with his name. In his last years on the Court, his detractors castigated him as one of the Four Horsemen who repeatedly struck down New Deal social legislation. After the defeat of President Franklin Roosevelt's “court‐packing scheme,” Sutherland resigned from the Court, where his beliefs had become unfashionable (see Court‐Packing Plan).

Sutherland's values were forged in the Utah frontier where his Scottish father, Alexander, and his English mother, Frances, brought him as a toddler from England. The Mormon church, which had attracted Alexander to Utah, soon proved uncongenial, and the elder Sutherland went on to pursue a variety of careers, including the law. His son George at the age of twelve entered Brigham Young Academy (later University), where he studied under the Mormon scholar Karl G. Maeser. Maeser impressed on him that the framers of the Constitution had been divinely inspired. Both Maeser and Judge Thomas M. Cooley, who instructed Sutherland at the University of Michigan Law School, passed along to the young man such notions as the existence of individual rights antecedent to the state, limited government dedicated to protecting these rights, and evolution toward social betterment.

After admission to the bars of Michigan and Utah in 1883, Sutherland briefly joined his father's law firm in Provo, and after another partnership there, moved to a prestigious firm in Salt Lake City. Active in Utah politics, first in the Liberal party (or Gentile party, opposed to Mormon polygamy) and after statehood in the newly founded Republican party, Sutherland served in the territorial legislature and as a state senator (1896–1900). In the latter capacity, he sponsored legislation extending eminent domain powers to mining and irrigation industries and advocated a bill for an eight‐hour day for miners. As a member of the United States House of Representatives (1901–1903), he championed protective tariffs for Utah's sugar crop, a commitment to protectionism that he maintained throughout his subsequent career in the United States Senate (1905–1917).

His two terms in the Senate were marked by the advocacy of many positions that defy the conventional image of him as a staunch conservative. He supported the Postal Savings Banks bill (1910), arguing that government had a duty to provide banking where none was available; the Nineteenth Amendment for women's suffrage; workmen's compensation legislation for the railroads, arguing that the Due Process Clause did not stand in the way of what the “enlightened minds of mankind” now regard as just; and legislation to improve the working condition of seamen.

Justice Sutherland's record on the Court likewise defies facile ideological categorization. His name is most often associated with liberty of contract cases such as Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923). (See Contract, Freedom of.) He wrote the majority opinion holding unconstitutional minimum wage legislation for women as an interference with a woman's right to contract and a step backward from the movement toward equality between the sexes. His laissez‐faire faith also surfaced in Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell (1934), where he invoked the Contracts Clause in dissent against the Court's affirmation of a Minnesota debt moratorium plan.

Yet, Sutherland was as zealous in defense of liberty rights as property rights. In Powell v. Alabama (1932), the famous case of the Scottsboro black youths condemned to death for an assault on a white girl, he wrote the Court's opinion overturning their conviction on the grounds that a criminal defendant has a right to counsel, including a reasonable opportunity for consultation. Grosjean v. American Press Co. (1936) was the occasion for his majority opinion declaring unconstitutional, as a prior restraint of the press, a state license tax on newspaper advertising. Even in property rights cases, Sutherland was not opposed to reasonable and necessary regulation. Thus, he upheld as constitutional: zoning, a ban on women working in restaurants after 10 p.m., the Illinois Fair Trade Act, and a statute regulating motor carriers' use of the streets and highways, among other regulatory acts.

The meaning of constitutional guarantees never varies, Sutherland argued in Euclid v. Ambler Realty Co. (1926), but “the scope of their application must expand or contract to meet the new and different conditions” (p. 387). This elasticity of application of constitutional principles gave him sufficient leeway to view as unconstitutional minimum wage legislation but as permissible regulation of the hours of work, especially in dangerous occupations. This distinction the Court would ultimately find untenable as it abandoned strict oversight of government economic regulations and embraced the New Deal.

See also History of the Court: The Depression and the Rise of Legal Liberalism.

— Ellen Frankel Paul

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US Government Guide: George Sutherland, Associate Justice, 1922–38
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Born: Mar. 25, 1862, Buckinghamshire, England
Education: University of Michigan Law School, 1883
Previous government service: Utah Senate, 1896–1900; U.S. representative from Utah, 1901–3; U.S. senator from Utah, 1905–17; chairman, advisory committee to the Washington Conference for the Limitation of Naval Armaments, 1921; U.S. counsel, Norway–United States arbitrations, The Hague, Netherlands, 1921–22
Appointed by President Warren G. Harding Sept. 5, 1922; replaced Justice John H. Clarke, who resigned
Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate Sept. 5, 1922, by a voice vote; retired Jan. 17, 1938
Died: July 18, 1942, Stockbridge, Mass.

George Sutherland was a strong advocate of private rights and limited government. He opposed extensive government regulation of businesses as an invasion of property rights and contractual rights. For example, he wrote for the Supreme Court in Adkins v. Children's Hospital (1923), the decision that struck down a minimum wage law for female workers. Justice Sutherland argued that this law interfered unconstitutionally with a woman's right to negotiate a contract.

Justice Sutherland was capable of defending the civil rights of accused people as vigorously as property rights. In Powell v. Alabama (1932), he overturned the conviction of black youths sentenced to death for an assault on a white girl because they had been denied their constitutional right to legal counsel (provided by Amendment 6).

Justice Sutherland's views in support of economic liberty and against heavy-handed government regulation of businesses put him at odds with President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs. He was known as one of the Court's “Four Horsemen”—the hard-line opponents of the New Deal. The Court's movement in 1937 toward acceptance of the New Deal influenced Sutherland to retire from the Court in 1938.

See also Powell v. Alabama

 
Columbia Encyclopedia: George Sutherland
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Sutherland, George, 1862-1942, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1922-38), b. Buckinghamshire, England. He was taken by his family to Springville, Utah from England in 1864. After studying law at the Univ. of Michigan, he was admitted (1883) to the bar, practiced law in Utah, and was (1896-1900) a member of the state senate. Sutherland then served in the U.S. House of Representatives (1901-2), and Senate (1905-17). His important decisions included Powell v. Alabama (1932), where he ruled that a conviction in the notorious Scottsboro Case was unconstitutional, because the defendants had been deprived of a right to counsel. In Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. v. United States (1936), he found that the executive branch held certain powers in foreign affairs not dependent on congressional authorization. Sutherland is best remembered as a conservative who consistently voted against much of the New Deal social legislation that came before the court. He wrote Constitutional Power and World Affairs (1919).
Dictionary: Suth·er·land   (sŭTH'ər-lənd) pronunciation, George
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1862-1942.

British-born American jurist and politician. He served as a U.S. representative (1901-1903) and senator (1905-1917) from Utah and was an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1922-1938).


Wikipedia: George Sutherland
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George Sutherland


In office
October 2, 1922 – January 17, 1938
Nominated by Warren G. Harding
Preceded by John Hessin Clarke
Succeeded by Stanley Forman Reed

Born March 25, 1862(1862-03-25)
Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom
Died July 18, 1942 (aged 80)

George Sutherland (March 25, 1862 – July 18, 1942) was an English-born U.S. jurist and political figure. One of four appointments to the Supreme Court by President Warren G. Harding, he served as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court between 1922 and 1938.

Contents

Early life and career

Born in Buckinghamshire, England, Sutherland immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1863 to join the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) in Springville, Utah. He graduated from Brigham Young Academy in 1881. Sutherland then graduated from the University of Michigan Law School, and was admitted to the Utah bar in 1883. He immediately entered in private practice in Provo, Utah until 1893, then practiced in Salt Lake City until 1901. He was a Member, Utah State Senate from 1897 to 1901.

Congress

Sutherland served as a Republican Congressman from Utah during the 57th Congress (March 4, 1901-March 3, 1903). In 1905, he was a surprise pick by the Utah state legislature for the unofficially designated "non-Mormon" seat, chosen as a friendlier option over the incumbent anti-Mormon officeholder. Sutherland's selection thus heralded an increase in Mormon political power in the state. He was a U.S. Senator representing Utah from 1905 to 1917, his term ending with an unsuccessful try for reelection to a third term in 1916. Following his Senate defeat, he remained in private practice of law in Washington, D.C. from 1917 to 1922, serving as President of the American Bar Association from 1916 to 1917.

Supreme Court

On September 5, 1922, Sutherland was nominated by President Warren G. Harding to the Associate Justice seat on the Supreme Court of the United States vacated by John Hessin Clarke. Sutherland was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 5, 1922, and received his commission the same day.

Sutherland wrote a decision refusing to declare unconstitutional a local zoning ordinance, in Village of Euclid, Ohio v. Ambler Realty Co.. The decision was widely interpreted as a general endorsement of the constitutionality of zoning laws.

During Franklin Roosevelt's early years in office as president, Justice Sutherland along with James Clark McReynolds, Pierce Butler and Willis Van Devanter, was part of the conservative Four Horsemen, who were instrumental in striking down Roosevelt's New Deal legislation. Important decisions authored by Sutherland include the 1932 case Powell v. Alabama, overturning a conviction in the Scottsboro Boys Case because the defendant, Ozie Powell, was deprived of his right to counsel, and U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp..

In United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, Sutherland authored a decision using his vague definition of the Caucasian race with the unmerited application of the common man test that classified Indians as belonging to the Asian race, despite anthropological assumptions on the contrary. This ruling led to Thind's being denied the possibility of naturalized citizenship.

Sutherland retired from the U.S. Supreme Court on January 17, 1938. Following his retirement as a Justice, Sutherland sat by special designation as a member of the Second Circuit panel that reviewed the bribery conviction of former Second Circuit Chief Judge Martin Manton, and authored the court's opinion upholding the conviction.

He died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.

References

Bibliography

  • Paschal, Joel Francis (1951). Mr. Justice Sutherland: A Man against the State. Princeton University Press. 
United States House of Representatives
Preceded by
William H. King
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Utah's 1st congressional district

March 4, 1901-March 3, 1903
Succeeded by
Joseph Howell
United States Senate
Preceded by
Thomas Kearns
United States Senator (Class 1) from Utah
1905 – 1917
Served alongside: Reed Smoot
Succeeded by
William H. King
Legal offices
Preceded by
John Hessin Clarke
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
October 2, 1922 – January 17, 1938
Succeeded by
Stanley Forman Reed



 
 

 

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