Mr. Chief Justice Dewey

Suppose Ike had appointed Thomas Dewey instead of Dewey's 1948 running mate Earl Warren to succeed Fred Vinson in 1953? (Admitttedly, the pay of a Supreme Court Chief Justice is negligible compared to the megabucks Dewey would make at Dewey, Ballantine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewey_Ballantine after finishing his last term as Governor of New York, but let's say Dewey finds the prestige worth it.) PresumablyDewey is as liberal on civil rights as Warren but tougher on law and order, so 5-4 decisions like Miranda might never come about...
 
He was a strong opponent of poll taxes, and other limits on African American voting rights! He believed in the firm application of the law
 
PresumablyDewey is as liberal on civil rights as Warren but tougher on law and order, so 5-4 decisions like Miranda might never come about...

Warren was quite tough on law and order issues as a District Attorney and later Governor, but became more liberal once appointed to the bench. There's a possibility that Dewey, a fellow liberal Republican, would take a similar path although that's by no means certain.

Dewey was only 51 in 1953, which would make him the youngest Chief Justice in U.S. History. I could see him being there at least until his OTL death in 1971, if not past that if butterflies allow. Otherwise he might resign once the next Republican President is elected and he returns to practicing law in New York.
 
Warren was quite tough on law and order issues as a District Attorney and later Governor, but became more liberal once appointed to the bench. There's a possibility that Dewey, a fellow liberal Republican, would take a similar path although that's by no means certain.


I'd say Dewey's subsequent views of Warren show it is quite unlikely.

"Another justice [besides Brennan] who 'just changed on us' was Earl Warren, who gave Brownell what Bryce Harlow calls 'an absolute assurance' that be would be a conservative chief justice. He proved anything but, and Dewey was appalled. He came to regard Warren as Eisenhower's greatest error, a judicial wrecker who pulled out the very underpinning of what was designed to be a conservative-to-moderate administration. Before he died, Dewey took to calling his onetime running mate 'the big dumb Swede." Richard Norton Smith, Thomas E. Dewey and His Times, p. 608.

"Like Thomas E. Dewey, who turned down the Chief Justice position that Warren accepted, Warren was a tough ex-prosecutor—not an appointee who seemed likely to author opinions expanding the rights of criminal suspects and defendants. In large part because of his stance on criminal justice. Had either of these two surprising votes proved less surprising, the Court might have adopted the stance Dewey himself probably would have taken had he held Warren's job: pro–civil rights in race cases but tough on criminal defendants." https://books.google.com/books?id=nEHgwemq0nYC&pg=PA243
 
Last edited:
I'd say Dewey's subsequent views of Warren show it is quite unlikely.

"Another justice [besides Brennan] who 'just changed on us' was Earl Warren, who gave Brownell what Bryce Harlow calls 'an absolute assurance' that be would be a conservative chief justice. He proved anything but, and Dewey was appalled. He came to regard Warren as Eisenhower's greatest error, a judicial wrecker who pulled out the very underpinning of what war designed to be a conservative-to-moderate administration Before he died, Dewey took to calling his onetime running mate 'the big dumb Swede." Richard Norton Smith, Thomas E. Dewey and His Times, p. 608.

"Like Thomas E. Dewey, who turned down the Chief Justice position that Warren accepted, Warren was a tough ex-prosecutor—not an appointee who seemed likely to author opinions expanding the rights of criminal suspects and defendants. In large part because of his stance on criminal justice. Had either of these two surprising votes proved less surprising, the Court might have adopted the stance Dewey himself probably would have taken had he held Warren's job: pro–civil rights in race cases but tough on criminal defendants." https://books.google.com/books?id=nEHgwemq0nYC&pg=PA243

If appointed Chief Justice Dewey's life would be an interesting parallel to Charles Evans Hughes: a New York Governor who lost narrowly to a Democratic President and later became Chief Justice.
 
Top