Lewis F. Powell Jr.

"Justice Powell" redirects here. For other uses, seeJustice Powell (disambiguation).

Lewis F. Powell Jr.
Official portrait, 1976
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
In office January 7, 1972 – June 26, 1987
Nominated by	Richard Nixon
Preceded by	Hugo Black
Succeeded by	Anthony Kennedy
Chairman of Virginia State Board of Education
In office 1968–1969
88th President ofAmerican Bar Association
In office 1964–1965
Preceded by	Walter Early Craig
Succeeded by	Edward W. Kuhn
Chairman of Richmond School Board
In office 1952–1961
Personal details
Born	Lewis Franklin Powell Jr. (1907-09-19)September 19, 1907 Suffolk, Virginia,U.S.
Died	August 25, 1998(1998-08-25)(aged 90) Richmond, Virginia,U.S.
Resting place	Hollywood Cemetery
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Josephine Pierce Rucker ​ ​ (m.1936; died 1996)​
Children	4
Education	Washington and Lee University(BA,LLB) Harvard University(LLM)
Military service
Allegiance	United States
Branch/service	United States Army
Years of service	1942–1945
Rank	Colonel
Battles/wars	World War II
Awards	Bronze Star Legion of Merit Croix de Guerre

Lewis Franklin Powell Jr.(September 19, 1907 – August 25, 1998) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as anassociate justice of the Supreme Court of the United Statesfrom 1972 to 1987.

Born inSuffolk, Virginia,he graduated from both theWashington and Lee University School of LawandHarvard Law Schooland served in theUnited States Army Air ForcesduringWorld War II.He worked forHunton & Williams,a large law firm inRichmond, Virginia,focusing oncorporate lawand representing clients such as theTobacco Institute.His 1971 Powell Memorandum became the blueprint for the rise of the American conservative movement and the formation of a network of influential right-wing think tanks and lobbying organizations, such asThe Heritage Foundationand theAmerican Legislative Exchange Council.In 1971, PresidentRichard Nixonappointed Powell to succeed the late Associate JusticeHugo Black.He retired from the Court during the administration of PresidentRonald Reagan,and was eventually succeeded byAnthony Kennedy.

His tenure largely overlapped with that of Chief JusticeWarren Burger,and Powell was often a keyswing voteon theBurger Court.His majority opinions includeUnited States v. Brignoni-Ponce(1975),Gregg v. Georgia(1976),First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti(1978),Solem v. Helm(1983), andMcCleskey v. Kemp(1987), and he wrote an influential opinion inRegents of the University of California v. Bakke(1978). He notably joined the majority in controversial cases such asUnited States v. United States District Court(1972),Roe v. Wade(1973),Milliken v. Bradley(1974),Harris v. McRae(1980),Plyler v. Doe(1982), andBowers v. Hardwick(1986).

Early life and education

Powell was born in Suffolk, Virginia, the son of Mary Lewis (Gwathmey) and Louis Franklin Powell.Powell set out to attendWashington and Lee Universitywhere he became president of his fraternity, managing editor of the student newspaper, and a member of the yearbook staff. His major was in commerce, but he also studied law. Powell had always planned on becoming a lawyer because he viewed their roles as shaping history. He graduated in 1929 with aB.A.magna cum laudeandPhi Beta Kappa.He also was named recipient of theAlgernon Sydney Sullivan Awardfor "generous service to others".

Powell then attendedWashington and Lee University School of Lawand in 1931 graduatedvaledictorian.He received aMaster of Lawsdegree from Harvard Law School in 1932,wrote a LL.M. thesis entitled "Relation between the Virginia Court of Appeals and the State Corporation Commission",and was one of two U.S. Supreme Court justices to have earned an LL.M. degree.

He was elected president of the student body as an undergraduate with the help ofMosby Perrow Jr.,and the two served together on the Virginia State Board of Education in the 1960s.Powell was a member ofPhi Kappa Sigmafraternity and theSigma Society.At a leadership conference, he metEdward R. Murrow,and they became close friends.

In 1936, he married Josephine Pierce Rucker with whom he had three daughters and one son. She died in 1996.

Career

Military service, 1939–1945

During World War II, he first tried to join theUnited States Navybut was rejected because of poor eyesight, so he joined theUS Army Air Forcesas anIntelligenceofficer. After receiving his commission as afirst lieutenantin 1942, he completed training at bases nearMiami, FloridaandHarrisburg, Pennsylvania.He was assigned to the319th Bombardment Group,which moved to England later that year. He served in North Africa duringOperation Torchand was later assigned to the Headquarters of the Northwest African Air Forces. There, Powell served in Sicily during theAllied invasion of Sicily.

In August 1943, he was assigned to the Intelligence staff of the Army Air Forces inWashington, D.C.Slated for assignment as an instructor at the facility near Harrisburg, he worked instead on several special projects for the AAF headquarters until February 1944. He was then assigned to the Intelligence staff of theDepartment of Warand then the Intelligence staff ofUnited States Strategic Air Forces in Europe.While there Colonel Powell wrote in the aftermath of the 13–15 February 1945Bombing of Dresdenthat "Personally, I consider this very fortunate indeed as the German people are being taught for the first time in modern history what it means to have war on their own soil."

Powell was assigned to theUltraproject, as one of the officers designated to monitor the use of interceptedAxiscommunications. He worked inEnglandand in theMediterranean Theaterand ensured that the use of Ultra information was in compliance with thelaws of war,and that the use of such information did not reveal the source, which would have alerted that the code had been broken.

Powell advanced through the ranks tocolonel,and received theLegion of Merit,Bronze Star Medal,and FrenchCroix de Guerrewith bronze palm. He was discharged in October 1945.

Legal career

In 1941, Powell served as Chairman of theAmerican Bar Association's Young Lawyers Division.

Powell was apartnerfor more than a quarter of a century at Hunton, Williams, Gay, Powell and Gibson, a largewhite shoeVirginia law firm, with its primary office inRichmond,now known asHunton Andrews Kurth.Powell practiced primarily in the areas ofcorporate law,especially in the fields ofbusiness acquisitions,securities regulation,bankruptcy,real estateand railroad litigation.

From 1961 to 1962 Powell served as Chair of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on the Economics of Law Practice, which later evolved into the ABA Law Practice Division. During his tenure as chair of the committee,The Lawyers Handbookwas first published and distributed to all attorneys who joined the ABA that year. In its preface, Powell wrote, "The basic concept of freedom under law, which underlies our entire structure of government, can only be sustained by a strong and independent bar. It is plainly in the public interest that the economic health of the legal profession be safeguarded. One of the means toward this end is to improve the efficiency and productivity of lawyers."

From 1964 to 1965 he was elected President of the ABA. Powell led the way in attempting to provide legal services to the poor, and he made a key decision to cooperate with the federal government'sLegal Services Corporation.Powell was also involved in the development ofColonial Williamsburg,where he was both a trustee and general counsel. From 1964 until his court appointment in 1971 he was a board member ofPhilip Morris and acted as a contact point for the tobacco industry withVirginia Commonwealth University.Through his law firm, Powell represented theTobacco Instituteand various tobacco companies in numerous cases.

Virginia government, 1951–1970

Powell played an important role in local community affairs. From 1951 to 1961, he served on theRichmond School Boardand was its chairman from 1952 to 1961. Powell presided over the school board at a time when the Commonwealth of Virginia was locked in a campaign of defiance against theSupreme Court's decision inBrown v. Board of Education(1954), which desegregated public schools. Powell's law firm, although not Powell himself, represented one of the defendant school districts inDavis v. County School Board of Prince Edward County,which was consolidated later intoBrown.

The Richmond School Board had no authority at the time to force integration, however, as control over attendance policies had been transferred to the state government. Powell, like most white Southern leaders of his day, did not speak out against the state's defiance, but he fostered close working relationships with many black leaders, such ascivil rightslawyerOliver Hill,some of whom offered key support for Powell's Supreme Court nomination. In 1990, Powell swore in Virginia's first black governor,Douglas Wilder.

From 1961 to 1969, Powell served on theVirginia Board of Education;he was chairman from 1968 to 1969.

Powell Memorandum, 1971

See also:Corporatocracy,Merchants of Doubt,Inverted totalitarianism,andEvil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America

On August 23, 1971, prior to accepting Nixon's nomination to the Supreme Court, Powell was commissioned by his neighborEugene B. Sydnor Jr.,a close friend and education director of theU.S. Chamber of Commerce,to write a confidential memorandum for the chamber entitled "Attack on the American Free Enterprise System," ananti-Communistand anti-New Dealblueprint for conservative business interests to retake America.It was based in part on Powell's reaction to the work of activistRalph Nader,whose 1965 exposé onGeneral Motors,Unsafe at Any Speed,put a focus on the auto industry putting profit ahead of safety, which triggered theAmerican consumer movement.Powell saw it as an undermining of the power of private business and a step towardsocialism.His experiences as acorporate lawyerand a director on the board ofPhillip Morrisfrom 1964 until his appointment to the Supreme Court made him a champion of thetobacco industrywho railed against the growing scientific evidence linking smoking to cancer deaths.He argued, unsuccessfully, that tobacco companies'First Amendmentrights were being infringed when news organizations were not giving credence to the cancer denials of the industry.

The memo called for corporate America to become more aggressive in molding society's thinking about business, government, politics and law in the US. It inspired wealthy heirs of earlier American industrialists, theEarhart Foundation(whose money came from an oil fortune), and theSmith Richardson Foundation(from the cough medicine dynasty)to use their private charitable foundations, which did not have to report their political activities, to join theCarthage Foundation,founded byRichard Mellon Scaifein 1964.The Carthage Foundation pursued Powell's vision of a pro-business, anti-socialist, minimally government-regulated America based on what he thought America had been in the heyday of early American industrialism, before theGreat Depressionand the rise ofFranklin D. Roosevelt'sNew Deal.

The Powell Memorandum ultimately came to be a blueprint for the rise of theAmerican conservative movementand the formation of a network of influential right-wingthink tanksand lobbying organizations, such as theBusiness Roundtable,The Heritage Foundation,theCato Institute,Manhattan Institute for Policy Researchand theAmerican Legislative Exchange Council(ALEC), and inspired the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to become far more politically active.CUNYprofessorDavid Harveytraces the rise ofneoliberalismin the US to this memo.HistorianGary Gerstlerefers to the memo as "a neoliberal call to arms."Political scientist Aaron Good describes it as an "inverted totalitarianmanifesto "designed to identify threats to the established economic order following the democratic upsurge of the 1960s.

Powell argued, "The most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism came from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians." In the memorandum, Powell advocated "constant surveillance" of textbook and television content, as well as a purge of left-wing elements. He named consumer advocate Nader as the chief antagonist of American business. Powell urged conservatives to undertake a sustained media-outreach program, including funding neoliberal scholars, publishing books, papers, popular magazines, and scholarly journals, and influencing public opinion.

This memo foreshadowed a number of Powell's court opinions, especiallyFirst National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti,which shifted the direction of First Amendment law by declaring that corporate financial influence of elections by independent expenditures should be protected with the same vigor as individual political speech. Much of the future Court opinion inCitizens United v. Federal Election Commissionrelied on the same arguments raised inBellotti.

Although written confidentially for Sydnor at the Chamber of Commerce, it was discovered byJack Anderson,a columnist withThe Washington Post,who reported on its content a year later, after Powell had joined the Supreme Court. Anderson alleged that Powell was trying to undermine the democratic system; however, in terms of business's view of itself in relation to government and public interest groups, the memo could be alternatively read to simply convey conventional thinking among businessmen at the time. The explicit goal of the memo was not to destroy democracy, though its emphasis on political institution-building as a concentration of big business power, particularly updating the Chamber's efforts to influence federal policy, has had that effect.Here, it was a major force in motivating the Chamber and other groups to modernize their efforts to lobby the federal government. Following the memo's directives, conservativefoundationsgreatly increased, pouring money intothink-tanks.This rise of conservative lobbying led to the conservative intellectual movement and its increasing influence over mainstream political discourse, starting in the 1970s and 1980s, and due chiefly to the works of theAmerican Enterprise Instituteand the Heritage Foundation.

Supreme Court tenure, 1972–1987

In 1969, Nixon asked him to join the Supreme Court, but Powell turned him down, and JudgeWarren Burgerof theD.C. Circuit Court of Appealswas appointed instead. In 1971, Nixon asked him again. Powell was unsure, but Nixon and his Attorney General,John N. Mitchell,persuaded him that joining the Court was his duty to the nation.One of the primary concerns that Powell had was the effect leaving his law firm and joining the high court would have on his personal financial status, as he enjoyed a very lucrative private practice at his law firm.Another of Powell's major concerns was that as a corporate attorney, he would be unfamiliar with many of the issues that would come before the Supreme Court, which, as now, heard very few corporate law cases. Powell feared that would place him at a disadvantage and make it unlikely that he would be able to influence his colleagues.

Nixon nominated Powell andWilliam Rehnquistto the Court on the same day, October 21, 1971.Powell's nomination generated no controversy and he took over the seat of Hugo Black after being confirmed by theSenate89–1 on December 6, 1971 (the lone "nay" came fromOklahomaDemocratFred R. Harris).On the day of Powell's swearing-in, when Rehnquist's wife Nan asked Josephine Powell if this was the most exciting day of her life, Josephine said, "No, it is the worst day of my life. I am about to cry."

Lewis Powell served from January 7, 1972, until June 26, 1987, when he retired from the Court.

Powell was among the 7–2 majority who legalizedabortionin the United States inRoe v. Wade(1973). Powell'spro-choicestance on abortion stemmed from an incident during his tenure at his Richmond law firm, when the girlfriend of one of Powell's office staff bled to death from an illegalself-induced abortion.

Powell, who dissented in the case ofFurman v. Georgia(1972), striking downcapital punishmentstatutes, was a key mover behind the Court's compromise opinion inGregg v. Georgia(1976), which allowed the return of capital punishment but only with strengthened procedural safeguards. InCoker v. Georgia(1977), a convicted murderer escaped from prison and, in the course of committing an armed robbery and other offenses, raped an adult woman. TheState of Georgiasentenced the rapist to death. Justice Powell, acknowledging that the woman had been raped, expressed the view that "the victim [did not] sustain serious or lasting injury"and voted to set the death penalty aside. In that same case, Powell also wrote to rebuke the plurality's statement that "for the rape victim, life may not be nearly so happy as it was, but it is not over and normally is not beyond repair,"instead stating that "[s]ome victims are so grievously injured physically or psychologically that life is beyond repair."

He joined the majority opinion inMilliken v. Bradley(1974), which struck down a forcedschool busingplan which would was designed to racially integrate 53 Detroit area public school districts across district lines. They had inadvertently become segregated due towhite flightto the suburbs. The majority ruled against the busing because the schools hadn't been segregated by law.

His opinion inRegents of the University of California v. Bakke(1978), joined by no other justice in full, represented a compromise between the opinions of JusticeWilliam J. Brennan,who, joined by three other progressive justices, would have upheld affirmative action programs under a lenient judicial test, and the opinion ofJohn Paul Stevens,joined by three other justices, who would have struck down the university's use of racial quotas at issue in the case under theCivil Rights Act of 1964.Powell's opinion striking down the law urged "strict scrutiny"to be applied to affirmative action programs but hinted that some affirmative action programs might pass Constitutional muster.

Powell wrote the majority opinion inFirst National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti(1978), which overturned a Massachusetts law restricting corporate contributions to referendum campaigns not directly related to their business.

In spite of supporting legal abortion, Powell ruled with the majority inHarris v. McRae(1980), which held that states participating inMedicaidare not required to fund medically necessary abortions for which federal reimbursement was unavailable as a result of theHyde Amendment,which restricted the use of federal funds for abortion.The Court also held that the funding restrictions of the Hyde Amendment did not violate theFifth Amendmentor theEstablishment Clauseof theFirst Amendment.

In the controversial case ofSnepp v. U.S.(1980), the Court issued aper curiamupholding the lower court's imposition of aconstructive trustupon former CIA agentFrank Sneppand its requirement for preclearance of all his published writings with the CIA for the rest of his life. In 1997, Snepp gained access to the files of JusticesThurgood Marshall(who had already died) and William J. Brennan Jr. (who voluntarily granted Snepp access) and confirmed his suspicion that Powell had been the author of the per curiam opinion. Snepp later pointed out that Powell had misstated the factual record and had not reviewed the actual case file (Powell was in the habit of writing opinions based on the briefs alone) and that the only justice who even looked at the case file was John Paul Stevens, who relied upon it in composing his dissent.From his days in counterintelligence during World War II, Powell believed in the need for government secrecy and urged the same position on his colleagues during the Court's consideration of 1974'sUnited States v. Nixon.

In 1982, Powell joined the 5–4 majority opinion inPlyler v. Doe,holding that a Texas law forbidding illegal immigrant children from public education was unconstitutional.Powell had a mixed record in deciding cases, but joined the Court's four liberal Justices to declare the law unconstitutional.

Powell was the deciding vote inBowers v. Hardwick,478U.S.186 (1986), in which the Court upheld Georgia'ssodomy laws.He was reportedly conflicted over how to vote. A conservative clerk,Michael W. Mosman,advised him to uphold the ban, and Powell, who believed he had never met a gay person, not realizing that one of his own clerks was a closeted homosexual, voted to uphold Georgia's sodomy law. However, he, in aconcurring opinion,expressed concern at the length of the prison terms prescribed by the law, criticizing them as excessive.The Court, 17 years later, expressly overruledBowersinLawrence v. Texas,539U.S.558 (2003). In 1990, after his retirement from the Court, he said, "I think I made a mistake in the Hardwick case," marking one of the few times a justice expressed regret for one of his previous rulings.Scholars would later conclude that Powell unknowingly hired more gay clerks than any other Justice.Paul M. Smith,the gay attorney who argued in favor of overturningBowers,is a former clerk for Justice Powell.

Powell also expressed post-retirement regret over his majority opinion inMcCleskey v. Kemp(1987), where he voted to uphold the death penalty against a study that demonstrated that, except as punishment for the most violent of crimes, murderers sentenced for killing white victims were up to forty times more likely to receive the death penalty than people who killed black victims. In an interview with his biographer, he stated that he no longer supported the death penalty.

Retirement and death, 1987–1998

Powell was nearly 80 years old when he retired from his position as Supreme Court justice in June 1987.His career on the bench was described byGerald Gunther,a professor of constitutional law atStanford Law School,as "truly distinguished" because of his "qualities of temperament and character," which "made it possible for him, more than any contemporary, to perform his tasks in accordance with the modest, restrained, yet creative model of judging."

He was succeeded by Anthony Kennedy. Kennedy was the third nominee for his position. The first,Robert Bork,wasrejectedby theUnited States Senateafter a bitter confirmation fight. The second,Douglas H. Ginsburg,withdrew his name from consideration after admitting to having smokedmarijuanaboth as a college undergraduate and with his students while a law professor.

Following his retirement from the high court, he sat regularly on variousUnited States Courts of Appealsaround the country.

In 1990,Douglas Wilderasked Powell to swear him in as governor of Virginia, and the first elected African-American governor in the United States.

Powell died at his home in theWindsor Farmsarea of Richmond, Virginia, ofpneumonia,at 4:30 in the morning of August 25, 1998, at the age of 90. He is buried in Richmond'sHollywood Cemetery.

Legacy

In her 2002 book,The Majesty of the Law,JusticeSandra Day O'Connorwrote, "For those who seek a model of human kindness, decency, exemplary behavior, and integrity, there will never be a better man."

Powell's personal and official papers were donated to hisalma mater,Washington and Lee University School of Law, where they are open for research, subject to certain restrictions. A wing atSydney Lewis Hall,home of W&L Law, which houses his papers, is named for him.

J. Harvie Wilkinson,a judge on theFourth Circuit,and formerlaw clerkfor Justice Powell, wrote a book titledServing Justice: A Supreme Court Clerk's Viewdescribing the experience.

In 1993, PresidentBill Clintonsigned into law an act of Congress renaming the Federal courthouse at Richmond, Virginia, in his honor, theLewis F. Powell Jr. United States Courthouse.

See also

• List of justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 1)
• List of United States Supreme Court justices by time in office
• United States Supreme Court cases during the Burger Court
• United States Supreme Court cases during the Rehnquist Court

References

Bibliography

• Bennett, John (2019)."Reaping The Whirlwind: The norm of reciprocity and the law of aerial bombardment during World War II"(PDF).Melbourne Journal of International Law.20:1–44.
• Jeffries, John C Jr (1994).Justice Lewis F Powell, Jr: A biography.Charles Scribner's Sons.

External links

• Lewis F. Powell Jr.atIMDb
• FBI file on Lewis F. Powell, Jr.at vault.fbi.gov
• AppearancesonC-SPAN