ASSOCIATE JUSTICE BYRON R. WHITE - INSCRIBED TYPESCRIPT SIGNED CO-SIGNED BY: ASSOCIATE JUSTICE ABE FORTAS, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE POTTER STEWART - HFSID 156566

BYRON "WHIZZER" WHITE, ABE FORTAS, POTTER STEWART
Photocopy of Tinker et al v. Des Moines Independent School District et al., a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding First Amendment rights in schools. Signed in blue ink by White, Fortas and Stewart, who all voted in the majority to uphold these rights.
Inscribed typescript signed "Potter Stewart" by Stewart, "Abe Fortas: for Martin Stairs" by Fortas and "Byron White" by White, all in blue ink. Also with notations in unknown hand in blue ink. 13 pages, 10¾x8¼, single-sided, bound with a staple. This is a copy of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Tinker et al v. Des Moines Independent School District et al., argued on Nov. 12, 1968 and decided on Feb. 24, 1969. Potter, White and Fortas all sat on the Supreme Court when this case was argued. Tinker stemmed from a 1965 incident when three students decided to wear black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War. Their school board subsequently decided to ban the wearing of armbands to school and suspended the students when they continued to wear them. The court decided 7-2 on Feb. 24, 1969 that students have First Amendment rights in schools and that school officials had to give constitutionally valid reasons for specific regulations of freedom of speech. All three voted with the majority; White and Fortas wrote their own concurrence opinions, as well. WHITE (1917-2002, born in Fort Collins, Florida), a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court (appointed by President Kennedy) from 1962 to 1993. He earned his nickname playing for the University of Colorado's football team. White played professional football for the then Pittsburgh Pirates (now the Steelers) to earn money for law school, and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford until World War II broke out. He returned to the U.S. and enrolled in Yale Law School in 1940 and also played two seasons with the Detroit Lions. At the time of his appointment, he was the youngest member (at age 44) to serve on the Court. Difficult to categorize and suspicious of ideology, White dissented in such landmark cases as Miranda v. Arizona (source of the "Miranda warning", 1966) and Roe v. Wade (1973). After two decades of private law practice, FORTAS (1910-1982, born in Memphis, Tennessee) was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965. Fortas had successfully represented LBJ when Johnson's 84-vote victory in the 1948 Democratic Senate primary in Texas was challenged, and remained a confidante of President Johnson. In 1968, LBJ nominated Fortas to succeed Earl Warren as Chief Justice, but then withdrew the nomination. In 1969, Life magazine revealed that Fortas had accepted and then returned a fee of $20,000 from a charitable foundation controlled by the family of an indicted stock manipulator. Public opinion forced Fortas to resign from the bench on May 14, 1969, but he denied any wrongdoing. It was the only time in U.S. history that a Supreme Court Justice resigned under public pressure. STEWART (1915-1985, born in Jackson, Michigan) was appointed by Associate Justice of the Supreme Court by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1958 and retired in 1981. Stewart often cast the deciding vote on major issues; he was the balance - the "swing" justice - between his conservative and liberal brethren on both the Warren and Burger courts. Always weighing an individual's rights against society's needs, he was a staunch advocate of a defendant's right to counsel. However, Stewart felt that a criminal's rights did not begin upon arrest but upon formal indictment; thus, he dissented in Miranda vs. Arizona (1966), which required police to read a newly arrested suspect his rights before questioning. Stewart supported judicial restraint, was reluctant to place even limited restrictions on the federal government and opposed both the death penalty and censorship. When he retired, Stewart was replaced by Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman Associate Justice (appointed by President Ronald Reagan). Lightly toned, creased and stained. Light tears on edges. Staple holes in upper left corner. Otherwise in fine condition.