Owen Roberts
Details
- Birth
- May 2, 1875 · Germantown, Pennsylvania
- Death
- May 17, 1955
- Law school
- pennsylvania, university of
- Prior experience
- Various legal and public service prior to appointment
Biography
Owen Josephus Roberts (1875-1955) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1930 to 1945. Born in Philadelphia to a working-class Welsh immigrant family, Roberts excelled academically and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1895, earning his law degree from the same institution in 1898. He established a successful private practice in Philadelphia, specializing in corporate law, and taught at the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 1898 to 1919. Roberts gained national prominence as a special prosecutor investigating the Teapot Dome scandal during the 1920s, successfully prosecuting former Interior Secretary Albert Fall and oil executive Harry Sinclair. President Herbert Hoover nominated Roberts to the Supreme Court in 1930, where he served for fifteen years during some of the most transformative periods in American constitutional law. Roberts is best remembered as the "swing vote" during the constitutional crisis of the 1930s surrounding Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal legislation. His vote in West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish (1937), upholding minimum wage laws and effectively overturning earlier precedent, marked what became known as "the switch in time that saved nine," helping to defuse Roosevelt's court-packing plan. Roberts authored the majority opinion in Korematsu v. United States (1944), upholding Japanese American internment during World War II, a decision later widely criticized as one of the Court's worst. After retiring from the Court in 1945, Roberts chaired the commission investigating the Pearl Harbor attack and served as dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School until his death. His legacy remains complex, reflecting both his pivotal role in legitimizing New Deal reforms and his participation in decisions later deemed constitutional failures.
Notable opinions
- West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish
- United States v. Butler