Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was an American jurist and politician who served as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States (1953-1969) and the 30th Governor of California.
He is known for the sweeping decisions of the Warren Court, which ended school segregation and transformed many areas of American law, especially regarding the rights of the accused, ending public-school-sponsored prayer, and requiring "one-man-one vote" rules of apportionment. He made the Court a power center on a more even base with Congress and the presidency especially through four landmark decisions: Brown v. Board of Education (1954), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), Reynolds v. Sims (1964), and Miranda v. Arizona (1966).
Warren is one of only two people to be elected Governor of California three times, the other being Jerry Brown. Before holding these positions, he was a district attorney for Alameda County, California, and Attorney General of California.
Warren was also the vice-presidential nominee of the Republican Party in 1948, and chaired the Warren Commission, which was formed to investigate the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Alongside that of John Marshall, Warren's tenure as Chief Justice is often seen as a high point of the power of the American judicial branch.
Read more about Earl Warren: Education, Early Career, and Military Service, Family, Attorney General of California, Governor of California, Legacy, Electoral History
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“It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humour, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“It is difficult to believe that even idiots ever succumbed to such transparent contradictions, to such gaudy processions of mere counter-words, to so vast and obvious a nonsensicality ... sentence after sentence that has no apparent meaning at all—stuff quite as bad as the worst bosh of Warren Gamaliel Harding.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)