THE POLITBLOG

The Alan Dershowitz interview article was both interesting and shocking. I wonder who the fly was on the wall in so many instances that provided first hand accounts to Alan Dershowitz.

I have to comment on a different note, however, that life is relative. Mr. Dershowitz felt compelled to comment that Thurgood Marshall was the most interesting “…though he was not a great legal scholar by any means.”

Thurgood Marshall’s background reflects that he was the most experienced attorney that actually practiced before the Supreme Court, seconded by Cheif Justice John Roberts. His education reflects that although he did not attend an Ivy League law school (he was denied admission to a state public university strictly on the basis of racial segregation. He later was the attorney that integrated the University of Maryland Law School in the famous case of Gaines v. Murray). He was, however, spoon fed the law by a Harvard Law Review Scholar, Charles Hamilton Houston. He spent his life working to achieve Justice for all, not just the status quo. As a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, “none of his (Marshall’s) 98 majority decisions was ever reversed by the Supreme Court.” As U.S. Solicitor General, Thurgood Marshall “won 14 of the 19 cases he argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the government.” So how one defines scholarship concerns me. Academic or literary legal scholarship on behalf of the already powerful and protected does not impress me as scholarship.

Mr. Dershowitz remarked that John Marshall was the most influential Justice. Chief Justice John Marshall obviously was influential to the Supreme Court in general. He was also, however, a slave owner at a young age. He defended slavery as an adult. His decisions on the Supreme Court did little to improve the lot of African Americans during his entire tenure on the Supreme Court leaving the Constitution more protective of slavery and segregation than it did to end injustice.

Mr. Dershowitz did not feel as equally compelled to criticize John Marshall in any way. I don’t think he even realized his lack of critique on Justice John Marshall, nor the impact of his back handed compliment to Justice Thurgood Marshall. Admittedly, Thurgood Marshall is my favorite Justice for obvious reasons (I am an African American attorney), and I have always lived with an admiration, yet small aversion to Justice John Marshall for being a slave owner that did nothing for the lot of African Americans (other than helping freed slaves return to Liberia) or women.