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2014 Father, Son, and Constitution: How Justice Tom Clark and Attorney General Ramsey Clark Shaped American Democracy, by Alexander Wohl (book review) Vincent R. Johnson

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Recommended Citation Vincent R. Johnson, Father, Son, and Constitution: How Justice Tom Clark and Attorney General Ramsey Clark Shaped American Democracy, by Alexander Wohl (book review), 61 Fed. Law. 100 (2014).

This Book Review is brought to you for free and open access by the School of Law Faculty Scholarship at Digital Commons at St. Mary's University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Articles by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons at St. Mary's University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FATHER, SON, AND administration. In those roles, he made it offers lessons in how to seek answers CONSTITUTION: HOW a major contribution to the drafting and to public questions in a principled fashion JUSTICE TOM CLARK AND passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 consistent with the rule of law. ATTORNEY GENERAL RAMSEY and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Known Wohl has had the good fortune to follow CLARK SHAPED AMERICAN for his liberal positions on issues central in the literary wake of Mimi Clark Gronlund, DEMOCRACY to the Bill of Rights during the tumultuous the daughter of Tom Clark and sister of BY ALEXANDER WOHL late 1960s, Ramsey Clark later became Ramey Clark. In 2009, Gronlund published University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS, 2013. 486 a leading critic of the U.S. criminal jus- an excellent book, the first major biogra- pages, $39.95. tice system and a champion of persons phy of her father, Supreme Court Justice oppressed and accused around the globe. Tom C. Clark: A Life of Service, which I Reviewed by Vincent R. Johnson Honoring the tradition of lawyers’ reviewed in the November/December 2009 fearlessly defending unpopular clients, issue of The Federal Lawyer. Although In Father, Son, and Constitution, Ramsey Clark represented many contro- Father, Son, and Constitution inevitably Alexander Wohl brings to life two major versial people, including Supreme Court retraces some of the same ground cov- figures of American law: Tom C. Clark and Justice William O. Douglas, Vietnam-era ered by Gronlund in her book, it deepens his son Ramsey Clark. The story focuses peace activist Philip Berrigan, politician and expands her analysis of events and primarily on the middle third of the 20th and conspiracy theorist Lyndon LaRouche, issues, and includes much new material. century and the many heated constitutional and the Palestine Liberation Organization. For example, Wohl’s book reflects the challenges that arose during that era. From He also represented notorious figures, dozens of hours of interviews that Ramsey the early 1940s to the late 1960s, one or such as Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Clark granted to him to assist the project. both of the Clarks held prominent federal Karadzic, and Saddam Hussein. Ramsey Ramsey is raised from a minor supporting government positions in Washington, D.C. Clark’s name has long been synonymous role in Gronlund’s biography of her father With an engaging literary style, Wohl with professional integrity, though he has to a principal subject receiving equal treat- perceptively examines not merely the lives had more than his share of detractors. ment with his father in Father, Son, and and careers of Tom and Ramsey Clark, but For example, Richard Nixon, in his 1968 Constitution. the key roles they played in the issues of presidential campaign, attacked him as Wohl’s story proceeds from Pearl Harbor their day. At so many different junctures, soft on crime. and World War II (including fraudulent war over several decades, the Clarks were at Tom and Ramsey Clark were both col- contracting, the Nuremberg trials, and the the center of the constitutional struggles orful figures who attracted loyal followers Marshall Plan), to the Cold War (includ- that defined the legal balance between and lived in interesting times. But they ing loyalty programs, subversive organiza- the exercise of individual rights and the were different types of men. Whereas tions, and the Alger Hiss case), to deseg- maintenance of public order. Tom Clark was the amiable pragmatist regation (including Southern resistance, Tom Clark was President Harry S. and “gregarious extrovert,” Ramsey Clark presidential action, and pivotal Supreme Truman’s close friend, his attorney gen- is an introspective and “impractical” ide- Court decisions), to the problems that eral from 1945 to 1949, and his law- alist. They also had very different life beset President Johnson’s efforts to build and-order appointee to the U.S. Supreme experiences. For example, Tom Clark— the Great Society (including race riots, Court in 1949. Evolving into a moderate the only Texan and only graduate of the war protests, and assassinations). At each among the liberals on the Vinson Court, University of Texas School of Law ever juncture—regardless of whether the his- he helped to pave the way for the deseg- appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court—did torical events are familiar or faded—Wohl’s regation of public education. As a member not leave Texas until he was 18. By con- account is vivid and fresh, as when he of the Warren Court, he was an impor- trast, Ramsey, a graduate of the University explains how dramatically Tom Clark’s life tant voice in a judicial revolution that of Chicago Law School, had traveled on transformed American society through an five continents and in 75 countries before expansive recognition of individual rights he was 19 (as a diplomatic courier in the and a broad construction of the Commerce Marines)—and even now in his 80s contin- Clause. During his 18 years on the nation’s ues to trot the globe. highest tribunal (1949 – 1967), Tom Clark Although both father and son shared a wrote 214 majority opinions, including commitment to American democracy, they most famously Mapp v. Ohio, 347 U.S. 643 approached constitutional questions from (1961), which held that illegally obtained different starting points. Tom Clark was evidence cannot be used in state criminal on the right or middle of the political spec- proceedings. trum, and Ramsey Clark was on the left. Ramsey Clark was assistant attorney The issues with which they dealt—such as general (1961 – 1965), first for President discrimination, wiretapping, and member- John F. Kennedy and then for President ship in subversive organizations—grabbed Lyndon B. Johnson, and thereafter deputy the headlines. The chief virtue of Father, attorney general (1965 – 1967) and attor- Son, and Constitution is not that the book ney general (1967-1969) in the Johnson tells a good story—which it does—but that

July 2014 • THE FEDERAL LAWYER • 103 changed when he gave up being attorney THE INVENTION OF MURDER: As a cultural history, The Invention of general for a seat on the Supreme Court. HOW THE VICTORIANS Murder discusses the importance in the Wohl captures the dilemmas behind the REVELLED IN DEATH AND early 19th century of broadsides—typically issues that dominated the news, the alter- DETECTION AND CREATED single sheets printed on one side—for the natives that were available to key decision MODERN CRIME working classes when a tax on newspapers makers, and the consequences that fol- BY JUDITH FLANDERS made them prohibitively expensive; as well lowed from the choices they made. St. Martin’s Press, New York, NY, 2013. 556 pages, as penny-gaffs, which were illegal, unli- As civilian coordinator of the Alien $26.99. censed plays performed in disused shops Enemy Control Program, Tom Clark played turned into theaters and attended almost a role in the internment of Japanese- Reviewed by Michael Ariens exclusively by children under 16, and enter- Americans, for which he later publicly apol- taining up to 50,000 persons per day in ogized. Wohl engages in a careful review The Invention of Murder, by Judith London alone. Licensed theaters in London of the uncertain nature of Clark’s job, the Flanders, is an extraordinary achieve- also made available more than 50,000 seats daunting political and logistical complexi- ment—an exhaustively researched history nightly. The plays they showed used mur- ties, and numerous comments later made of 19th-century Great Britain, written with der, often recent murders, to entertain their by several of the principals with whom verve. Flanders uses the conceit of murder, vast audience. Clark had worked. On the basis of this and the stories she tells of murders, to Penny-bloods were small booklets about research, he concludes that “Clark ... may immerse the reader in 19th-century legal, murder and mayhem (often, Flanders notes, have been the wrong person in the wrong cultural, and social history. It is a superb involving either dashing highwaymen or evil place at the wrong time for this assign- and engrossing study. aristocrats) sold, as one might expect, for ment.” Flanders begins with the 1811 murder a penny, and popular with much the same Nowhere is Wohl’s critical eye more of Thomas Marr, his wife, their infant, and a audience that attended penny-gaffs. Penny- effective than in scrutinizing the late author teenage apprentice, and she concludes with bloods were later called penny-dreadfuls, Merle Miller’s undocumented assertion that the femicides of the late 1880s attributed and were abhorred by the middle class, Truman once said in an interview that his to Jack the Ripper. Although both events which found other ways to embrace the appointments of Tom Clark as attorney occurred in London’s East End, Flanders same violence, as by attending murder tri- general and Supreme Court justice were ranges across Great Britain throughout the als or reading fiction written to their tastes. “my biggest mistake.” Wohl’s exhaustive century. Her depth of knowledge, as dem- Flanders links the rise of newspapers to review of the evidence is devastating to onstrated in her endnotes and bibliography, their coverage of murders, demonstrating Miller. It not only casts serious doubt on appears to encompass everything related to statistically the astonishing amount of cov- whether the aging former President ever every murder in this place and time. erage to murders given by even the most uttered such a comment, but it shows why As a legal history, The Invention of respectable papers. She explains clearly the it would have been inconsistent with virtu- Murder explains a number of developments importance of melodrama in the earlier part ally every aspect of the long and faithful in English law: the Prisoners’ Counsel Act of of the 19th century, with its stock characters Truman–Clark relationship, which spanned 1836, which finally gave felony defendants and the triumph of justice. Melodrama was three decades. the right to counsel; the speed with which displaced by sensation-fiction, which often Father, Son, and Constitution is a executions took place in the initial absence made a gentleman of standing the murder- timely book. Many of the key constitutional of an appellate process; the peculiar legal er. Sensation-fiction was in turn displaced issues in our digital age and the ongoing prism by which infanticide was (or was not) by the detective novel, as exemplified by war on terror are merely updated versions dealt with; the right to request a change Sherlock Holmes, the amateur who bests the of struggles that were fought at mid-cen- of venue due to local prejudice (known police. Flanders provides a magnifying lens tury. Those battles, like today’s, sought to informally as Palmer’s Act, and opposed by define the proper balance between individ- the “victualling interest”); the popularity ual rights and personal privacy on the one and, later, abolition of, public hangings; the hand, and national security on the other. invention of policemen, skeptically called Father, Son, and Constitution contains “raw lobsters” or “the unboiled” (uncooked a rich trove of historical analysis that can lobsters are blue, cooked lobsters red, and inform the handling of constitutional issues policemen wore blue coats to distinguish now and in the future.  them from the red-coated army); the rise of a detective force; the Anatomy Act of Vincent R. Johnson is professor of law 1832, which, adopted to end the “resurrec- at St. Mary’s University School of Law tion” trade, allowed anatomy schools access in San Antonio, Texas, and the author to corpses; the increasing importance of of Justice Tom C. Clark’s Legacy in the expert medical testimony (and its abomi- Field of Legal Ethics, 29 J. Legal Prof. 33 nable use in many cases); and the influence (2005). He crosses paths with Alex Wohl judges possessed in summing up criminal each year at the Supreme Court Fellows cases (a practice abolished by most states Program alumni dinner. in the United States in the same century).

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