Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices.

• Author: Lewis, Mark F.

Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices

By Noah Feldman

You might think that four men, all politically connected to Franklin Roosevelt, would project a united liberal front during their days on the Supreme Court. But as the title of this book--taken from a quote by Frankfurter's clerk Alexander Bickel--and some chapter headings (e.g., "Betrayal" and "Fracture") suggest, this was hardly the case.

In this very readable book, Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman traces the paths that took Hugo Black, Robert Jackson, Felix Frankfurter, and William O. Douglas to the High Court and how "beginning as allies, they would become enemies, each with his own theory of how to understand the Constitution."

Feldman first discusses each man's pre-Court experience and their Senate confirmations, which were conducted far differently than those of recent years. He then examines some of their most famous--though not necessarily greatest--opinions, against the backdrop of both their historical settings and the personal battles that were raging among them.

World War II did not bring out the best of the justices. They ruled against Jehovah's Witnesses who refused to recite the pledge of allegiance (a decision later reversed) and, in perhaps their most infamous decision, upheld the internment of Japanese citizens. They fared little better in the early post-war years when dealing with the threat of communism. Yet these opinions planted the seeds for later, more judicious ones, as they introduced the now...