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Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Esq.


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Third-Party Descriptions

January 2011: 'The clear and present danger standard has been a central element of our First Amendment jurisprudence ever since Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s 1919 opinion in Schenk v. United States. In the 90 years since, the precise meaning of “clear and present danger” has evolved, but the animating principle was stated brilliantly by Justice Louis D. Brandeis in his 1927 concurring opinion in Whitney v. California. The founders “did not exalt order at the cost of liberty,” wrote Brandeis; on the contrary, they understood that “only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom. Such ... is the command of the Constitution. It is, therefore, always open to Americans to challenge a law abridging free speech and assembly by showing that there was no emergency justifying it.”'

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/opinion/04stone.html

May 2010: 'But there were also the whispers — is she or isn’t she? — and the guys in the White House got all defensive, protesting too much that she isn’t. If roughly one out of nine Americans is gay, why shouldn’t one out of nine Supreme Court justices be? After all, President Obama has quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes as saying that “it is experience that can give a person a common touch and a sense of compassion; an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live.”'

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/opinion/19dowd.html

June 2008: "Mr. Silverglate seemed to be echoing the words of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose 1919 dissent in Abrams v. United Stateseventually formed the basis for modern First Amendment law."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/12/us/12hate.html

May 2007: This month marked the 80th anniversary of the disgraceful Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell, which upheld Virginia's involuntary sterilization laws. In his majority opinion, Holmes declared: 'It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind . . . Three generations of imbeciles is enough.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/18/AR2007051801802.html

December 2005: The discredited Lochner era (1905-1937) -- so christened because of Lochner v. New York, which invalidated a maximum-hours law for bakers -- frowned on all manner of social or economic regulation, from minimum wage to child labor laws. The era was guided by Social Darwinism and British philosopher Herbert Spencer's 'Social Statics' over the persuasive protests of Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes, Louis Brandeis and Harlan Fiske Stone. In Lochner, Holmes, writing in dissent, maintained that 'a Constitution is not intended to embody a particular economic theory, whether of paternalism and the organic relation of the citizen to the state or of laissez faire.'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601783.html

April 2005: '(March 8, 1841 - March 6, 1935) was an American jurist noted for his progressive decisions, often contrary to that of other judges of his time. He was called "The Great Dissenter".'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes%2C_Jr.

April 2005: 'Hammer, a 4-foot-11 dynamo with a national reputation for her persuasive powers, dismissed the papers as "liberal, anti-gunners" and "Chicken Littles." The current law unfairly forces Floridians to make split-second decisions about a criminal's intent, she said, and NRA lobbyists like to note that was deemed impossible generations ago by legendary Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. "Detached reflection," Holmes said in one of his most oft-quoted pronouncements, "cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife."'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/25/AR2005042501553.html

Relationships

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Succeeded by Judge Benjamin N. Cardozo Esq. Person Feb 5, 2007

Articles and Resources

Date Fairness.com Resource Read it at:
Jan 03, 2011 A Clear Danger to Free Speech

QUOTE: THE so-called Shield bill, which was recently introduced in both houses of Congress in response to the WikiLeaks disclosures, would amend the Espionage Act of 1917 to make it a crime for any person knowingly and willfully to disseminate, “in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States,” any classified information “concerning the human intelligence activities of the United States.” Although this proposed law may be constitutional as applied to government employees who unlawfully leak such material to people who are unauthorized to receive it, it would plainly violate the First Amendment to punish anyone who might publish or otherwise circulate the information after it has been leaked.

 New York Times
May 18, 2010 All the Single Ladies

QUOTE: White House officials were so eager to squash any speculation that Elena Kagan was gay that they have ended up in a pre-feminist fugue, going with sad unmarried rather than fun single, spinning that she’s a spinster.

 New York Times
Jun 12, 2008 Out of Step With Allies, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend (American Exception)

QUOTE: In the United States, that debate has been settled. Under the First Amendment, newspapers and magazines can say what they like about minority groups and religions — even false, provocative or hateful things — without legal consequence....Canada, England, France, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, Australia and India all have laws or have signed international conventions banning hate speech. Israel and France forbid the sale of Nazi items like swastikas and flags. It is a crime to deny the Holocaust in Canada, Germany and France.

 New York Times
Feb 20, 2008 John F. Kennedy, plagiarist?

QUOTE: If Barack Obama borrowed from Deval Patrick, so what? Creative "borrowing" is part of speechwriting, as Kennedy knew, and as I learned while working for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale.

 Salon
May 20, 2007 Haunting Echoes of Eugenics

QUOTE: This month marked the 80th anniversary of the disgraceful Supreme Court decision in Buck v. Bell, which upheld Virginia's involuntary sterilization laws .... Though society may be inclined to regard Holmes's detestable opinion in Buck v. Bell as a relic of a time past, eerie similarities exist in contemporary remarks of the well-respected.

 Washington Post
Dec 18, 2005 Don't Run From the Truth: Why Alito Shouldn't Deny His Real Convictions

QUOTE: The Bush administration argues, unpersuasively, that this intellectual disingenuousness is necessary to mollify Senate Democrats who would oppose a nominee too nakedly critical of their sacred cows, or to avert the type of sound-bite demagoguery that destroyed Bork.

 Washington Post
Apr 26, 2005 Fla. Gun Law to Expand Leeway for Self-Defense: NRA to Promote Idea in Other States

QUOTE: ...let Floridians "meet force with force," erasing the "duty to retreat" when they fear for their lives outside of their homes, in their cars or businesses, or on the street.

 Washington Post
Jul 16, 2003 The New York Racist Float Case: How the First Amendment does and does not protect racist city workers

QUOTE: ...[two NY City firefighters and a police officer] rode on a racially offensive float [and were fired].... they sued the City and various City officials, claiming to be victims of retaliation for their exercise of free speech.

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