Robert Houghwout Jackson was born on February 13, 1892, and died on October 9, 1954, and served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1941 until his death. He is the only person to have served as United States solicitor general, United States attorney general, and a Supreme Court justice, and he never earned a law degree, having been admitted to the bar through an apprenticeship after a year at Albany Law School. He is best remembered for taking leave from the Court to serve as chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials of major Nazi war criminals following the Second World War. Widely regarded as one of the finest legal stylists ever to sit on the Court, he wrote the majority opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette and notable dissents in Korematsu v. United States and Everson v. Board of Education, and coined the aphorism that the Court is not final because it is infallible, but infallible only because it is final.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.