"I'm going to appoint Thurgood Marshall to the (Supreme) Court."
This is an excerpt from a recorded conversation between President Lyndon Johnson and then-Judge Thurgood Marshall, released by the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, which has been compiling these once-secret audio tapes.
The U.S. Supreme Court vacancy this spring created a buzz of excitement among many liberal activists who hoped President Barack Obama would use the opportunity to name an outspoken, politically savvy, consensus builder.
Elena Kagan, building on a long, diverse legal career in government and academia, was officially sworn in as the 112th justice at the Supreme Court on Saturday, promising to "faithfully and impartially" discharge her new judicial duties.
Republican senators this week pressed Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan on the degree to which her views mirror those of her mentor Justice Thurgood Marshall, whom Kagan clerked for in 1987-88.
Elena Kagan was the nominee at her confirmation hearing Monday for the Supreme Court, but you would not be faulted for believing the real spotlight was on those not attending-- the conservative members of the bench who drew so much attention from senators on the Judiciary Committee.
A panel debates whether Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan will be confirmed or fall victim to partisan bickering.
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan makes her opening statement before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday that justices on the nation's highest court should be even-handed and impartial in order to promise "nothing less than a fair shake for every American."
Diversity is not a word that describes the Supreme Court's makeup over most of its existence. Only three women justices have served (the first in 1981), and only two African-Americans (the first in 1967).
The stars and writer of "Thurgood" talk about the civil rights pioneer portrayed on stage.
Actor Laurence Fishburne is visibly moved when asked to read an excerpt of remarks made more than a half-century ago by the man he now portrays onstage, the legendary Thurgood Marshall.
Thurgood Marshall, Hattie McDaniel, the Tuskegee Airmen and Walter Morris -- all African-Americans who made history breaking the color barrier. But while America's first black Supreme Court justice, the first African-American Oscar winner and the U.S. military's first African-American pilots are well known, you may never have heard of Walter Morris or his role in American history.
Meet Walter Morris, a trailblazing paratrooper who broke the color barrier in secret.
CNN's Kate Bolduan reports on the real-world stakes for the upcoming Supreme Court vacancy.
"You are not my people." That was Elena Kagan's blunt but light-hearted declaration when she greeted conservative legal minds meeting at Harvard's prestigious law school in 2005.
When it comes to fighting white-collar crime, the sharpest arrow in the federal prosecutor's quiver is a law most nonlawyers have never heard of, known as the "honest-services fraud" law.
So what does the U.S. Supreme Court gain and lose by exchanging Justice David Souter for Sonia Sotomayor?
The Constitution gives the president the exclusive power to nominate members of the Supreme Court. But it does not guarantee the political process will run smoothly for him or his nominee.
In a Washington that pays homage to bipartisanship but never quite gets there, the prospect of a new Supreme Court battle only gets the partisan juices flowing.
I sometimes marvel that I probably couldn't get hired at my law school today.
The following profiles feature prominent African Americans in the fields of politics, law, sports, civil rights and entertainment.
In a recent poll, a majority of Americans said they favored mandatory retirement for judges at age 65. That is a very bad idea.
Business 2.0: Gene Wadeupdated: Mon Nov 01 2004 00:01:00
When he was in college, Gene Wade had visions of becoming the next Thurgood Marshall. "I wanted to be a lawyer because those were the people that changed society," he says. "I thought law would giv...
It may be the most hallowed ground in the nation: Arlington National Cemetery, the final resting place for more than 260,000 people.
As lawyers and court watchers have long suspected, the Supreme Court was ready to effectively overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion in 1992, but Justice Anthony M. Kennedy got cold feet, and the vote went the other way.
President Bush used executive powers Friday to bypass Congress and grant a spot on the federal appeals bench to U.S. District Judge Charles Pickering, stoking a long-simmering feud with Senate Democrats over judicial nominations.
On the cover of a recent issue of National Review is a portrait of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall having a snooze. Accompanying this artwork is an article by Terry Eastland, recently ...
''Instantly procure the unexpurgated file on Judicial Activism,'' recently screeched the senior Keeping Up correspondent on the social issues desk, ''and while you are about it also arrange for the...
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