Harlan Fiske Stone Biography

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World of Criminal Justice on Harlan Fiske Stone

Harlan Fiske Stone played a significant role in American legal history. Stone served as U.S. attorney general from 1924 to 1925 under President Calvin Coolidge before being appointed to the Supreme Court in 1925 by Coolidge. In 1941 President Franklin Roosevelt elevated him to chief justice, a position he held until his death.

Stone was born on October 11, 1872 in Chesterfield, New Hampshire. After graduating from Amherst College in 1894, Stone entered Columbia Law School. Upon his graduation and admission to the New York bar in 1898, Stone joined a major corporate law firm in New York City law firm. However, Stone was drawn to teaching and scholarship, which led him back to Columbia in 1920 to join the law faculty. He remained at Columbia for over 20 years, with the last fourteen as dean of the law school. Although he left Columbia in 1923 to return to corporate law practice, his stay was brief. In 1924 he accepted President Coolidge's appointment as U.S. attorney general.

Coolidge asked Stone to rebuild the name and morale of the Department of Justice, as former attorney general Harry Daugherty had resigned in disgrace over his involvement in the Teapot Dome scandal. This scandal, which occurred during President Warrant G. Harding's brief term, involved the leasing of government oil reserves by federal officials to private industry in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars of kickbacks. A further complication was the Bureau of Investigation (BI). Long a home to politically corrupt employees, this federal law enforcement staff was poorly staffed and trained. Stone appointed J. Edgar Hoover to head the BI. Within a few years Hoover had transformed the agency, recruiting college graduates and training them at a special academy. By the mid-1930s the organization was renamed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Hoover became the most prominent American law enforcement official.

In 1925 President Coolidge appointed Stone to the Supreme Court. When several senators raised concerns about Stone's background, Stone volunteered to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer their questions. Stone was readily confirmed and the Senate adopted this method for all future judicial candidates. Though Stone might have had a few tense moments before the Senate committee, these paled in comparison to the tensions he experienced after joining the Supreme Court. A solid conservative majority had dominated the Court for several generations and the current members showed no inclination to bend to changes in the economy or society. Stone was not a liberal but he could not accept the judicial activism of the majority. In numerous dissenting opinions, Stone counseled judicial restraint. He contended it was the constitutional role of Congress and the state legislatures to make policy decisions about economic regulations such as minimum hours and wages. Moreover, as the U.S. economy began to deteriorate after the November 1929 Wall Street Crash, many policymakers argued for government intervention.

His opposition to the conservative majority grew more acute after Franklin Roosevelt was elected president in 1932. Roosevelt and Congress quickly agreed on a series of federal laws that sought to manage the national economy. On 5-4 votes, the Court struck these down as unconstitutional. Although Stone was a Republican, Roosevelt did not forget that Stone dissented in these cases. By 1938 the Court had shifted its viewpoint and Roosevelt's policies were found to be lawful. When Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes retired in 1941, Roosevelt elevated Stone to chief justice.

Stone is most remembered by constitutional historians and lawyers for a footnote he wrote inUnited States v. Carolene Products Company, 304 U.S. 144, 58 S.Ct. 778, 82 L.Ed. 1234 (1938). The footnote stated that "prejudice against discrete and insular minorities may be a special condition, which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities and...call for a more searching judicial scrutiny." This footnote served as the foundation for a judicial test that determines whether a law is constitutional. Labeled the "strict scrutiny" test, this test applies when the law applies to a protected class, such as a racial minority. The state must show a compelling interest to support the law and must demonstrate that the law is narrowly tailored to meet this interest. The use of strict scrutiny has led to the invalidating of many criminal laws because they discriminated against individuals because of their race, religion, or nationality. Until the enunciation of this test, states could pass constitutional muster by showing they had reasonable grounds for the law.

Stone died on April 22, 1946 in Washington, D.C., while still serving as chief justice.