A Defense & an Explanation

Most critics of the U.S. Supreme Court, argues Walter E. Craig, president of the American Bar Association, see every decision in terms of their own pet love or hate. Stoutly defending the court in a speech to lawyers in conservative Phoenix, Ariz., Craig reasoned that such subjectivity "completely ignores the complex and subtle functioning of the judicial process." For perfervid critics of the "Warren Court," he then analyzed four "controversial" decisions:

>Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which outlawed school segregation and overturned the separate-but-equal doctrine that a prior court approved in 1896. Despite Southern outcries, said Craig, "Chief Justice Warren was quick to realize that the Constitution must forever remain a living, flexible document, able to be expanded and adapted to changing circumstances."

>Mapp v. Ohio (1961), which overruled a 1949 decision that unconstitutionally seized evidence (by search without a warrant, for example) is sometimes admissible in a state criminal trial. Though police decry Mapp, the court's basic principles in 1961 were much the same as in 1949: "Changing social conditions had created problems and abuses which amounted to constitutional violation."

>Engel v. Vitale (1962), which struck down the use of a school prayer composed by the New York State Board of Regents. Despite the public furor, says Craig, "no other decision would have been consistent with the dictates of the First Amendment." Far from being hostile to religion, the court simply sustained the long-held U.S. belief that "a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion." >Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), which overturned a 1942 ruling that indigent defendants in state criminal trials are not necessarily entitled to court-appointed counsel. By its long-held reluctance to require such counsel, the court showed "respect for the concept of federalism." By finally acting, where states had failed to, it was simply protecting what has been called "the most pervasive right of the accused."

"The root cause of controversial decisions is not the Supreme Court," Craig concluded, "but the times in which we live and the critical issues they have engendered. Our Constitution becomes meaningless if it is not a constitution as interpreted by the court. This is what is meant by justice under the law. The Supreme Court has always been dominated by the quest for justice when faced with problems that are more important and more difficult than those that any other court in the history of the world has been asked to face."

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