Bond v. Floyd

About the Author

Born on March 19, 1891, in Los Angeles, California, Earl Warren was chief justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. Warren grew up in Bakersfield, California, the son of parents who were born in Scandinavia and raised in the United States. During his youth, Warren worked for the Southern Pacific Railroad as a call boy rounding up crews for the railroad. That experience exposed him to working men and labor issues in a way that some have suggested shaped his thoughts on the law, if not his entire outlook on life. After graduating from high school in 1908, he attended the University of California at Berkeley and its law school, Boalt Hall. Despite his discomfort with the narrowness of its curriculum, he graduated from Boalt Hall in 1914.

After practicing in the legal department of an oil company in San Francisco and with a small firm in Oakland, Warren joined the U.S. Army during World War I. He served stateside and left active duty at the end of the war. After clerking for the California legislature and working in Oakland’s city attorney’s office and as a deputy district attorney for Alameda County, California, Warren was appointed district attorney of the county. He was then elected to the post and served as district attorney for thirteen years before being elected attorney general of California in 1938. As attorney general, Warren played a significant role in the tragic and ill-conceived decision of the U.S. government to relocate Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. He later expressed regret for his role in the affair. After serving one term as attorney general of California, Warren was elected governor of California in 1942. He was reelected in 1946 and 1950, serving as governor until he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1953.

Warren was also active in national politics. In 1948, during his second term as governor, Warren ran for the vice presidency as Republican Thomas Dewey’s running mate. Warren sought the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 1952, losing to Dwight Eisenhower. In early 1953, Warren accepted the post of solicitor general. However, following the death of Chief Justice Fred Vinson, Warren was appointed chief justice of the United States. After serving for several months, Warren was confirmed by the Senate on March 1, 1954. Although the Warren Court has been cheered by many and derided by others, the decisions issued during Warren’s tenure as chief justice changed fundamental aspects of American law. Many of those seminal decisions were authored by Chief Justice Warren himself, including (1954) and its sequel, commonly called Brown II (1955); Reynolds v. Sims (1964); Miranda v. Arizona (1966); Loving v. Virginia (1967); and Terry v. Ohio (1968).

In the wake of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Warren served as the chair of the President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, commonly known as the Warren Commission. That commission’s most famous conclusion—that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in assassinating President Kennedy—has been debated and challenged since the commission’s report was issued in 1964. Earl Warren retired in 1969 at the close of the Court’s term and died on July 9, 1974.