biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1882–1965)
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| biography:
| Judge, and presidential adviser, born in Vienna, Austria. He emigrated to the USA at age 12 and studied at Harvard Law School (1906). He briefly practised law and served as an assistant district attorney in New York before joining the faculty at Harvard Law School (1914–39), during which time he served as a legal adviser to President Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference (1919). An early contributor to The New Republic, he helped found the American Civil Liberties Union (1920) and argued in favour of Sacco and Vanzetti's right to a new trial. He advised President Franklin D Roosevelt on many New Deal programmes, and Roosevelt named him to the US Supreme Court (1939–62). His tenure on the court tamed his liberalism. His opinions reflected his belief in judicial restraint, believing that the law should emanate from the people and the legislative process rather than the court. In 1963 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. |
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