 | The Cavalier daily Monday, March 1, 1971 |  |
Fortas Affirms Court Role As Social Reform Leader
By Hal Bogard
Speaking to an overflow audience.
Friday night in the auditorium of the
New Chemistry Building, former Justice
of the Supreme Court Abe Fortas called
attention to the leading role the legal
profession has played in what he called
"the first phase of the social revolution."
According to Mr. Fortas, the
monumental Brown decision of 1954
marked the beginning of an era of the
"establishment of a new set of values
. . . .in which we find this country in a
situation as if there had suddenly come
into our land from foreign parts at least
23 million people (that is about the
number of blacks) who were demanding and we
admitted were entitled to rights in the courts,
rights of education, rights to health facilities,
rights to welfare facilities, and rights to the
total panoply of services."
"This — a reaffirmation of what appears in
the Old Testament, the New Testament, the
American Constitution, and specifically in the
fourteenth amendment equality of people in
the eyes of the law."
Mr. Fortas went on to point out that the
second phase of the social revolution is a period
of implementing these new values, and that the
public is witnessing how hopelessly inadequate
the various institutions are in trying to
accommodate these 23 million heretofore
second-class citizens.
Even with the 'tremendous strides' that have Photos By Howard Weinberg Legal Profession's Place In "First Phase Of Social Revolution", Recent Miranda Decision Among Topics In Speech
been made by the legal profession (and largely
by young lawyers) to make legal aid available to
Former Justice of the Supreme Court Abe Fortas Spoke Friday Night To Overflow Crowd
stated that much more will have to be done in
an effort to rescale the law.
"I think we have to create para-legal
institutions and para-lawyers," he said. "That is
to say that we have to use laymen more and
more. Lawyers do a lot of things that don't
require four years of college and three years of
law school."
"I hope that we will find through our law
schools and otherwise a means to rescale the
law so that many of the operations of the law —
landlord cases, petty misdemeanors, and so on
can be handled by people who have not gone
through this elaborate training and that the
professionals can then devote themselves to
professional work."
He added that this idea must be extended to
other professions as well. The noted jurist
concluded his speech by expressing his faith
that the leadership of the social revolution will
be perpetuated by the young members of the
legal profession.
In response to a question concerning the net
effect of the recent Supreme Court decision
which limits the scope of the famous Miranda
decision, the former Justice explained that,
"the decision rendered the other day by the
Supreme Court of the United States held that
although a confession obtained without
compliance with the Miranda rule could not be
used in evidence against a defendant it could
be used to impeach the defendant if he took
the stand.
"I think in principle that I find it impossible
to justify that decision as a matter of logic or
constitutional reason: I find it a highly
undesirable decision. I think the decision has a
very bad practical effect. It will make it even
more disadvantageous for defendants to take
the stand.
"If any kind of confession or at least a
confession in violation of Miranda can be used
for impeachment," he continued, "a lawyer
will want to make absolutely certain his client
has said nothing to the police before he puts
him on the stand.
"I think that kind of a discouragement to
defendants taking the stand is not an advance in
jurisprudence, and I'm surprised — except that
I'm not — that some of the commentators who
are gung-ho for more and more power to the
police didn't realize that this is
counter-productive even from their point of
view," he concluded.
When asked what he thought about the
recent decision in which the Supreme Court
held that the act of Congress which authorized
18 year olds to vote was valid as far as federal
elections but which was not valid as far as state
elections are concerned. Mr. Fortas stated that
he regretted the decision.
"In my opinion, when the Congress of the
United States says that if a state draws a line
between an 18 year old and a 21 year old that
the state is discriminating without reasonable
classification... I should think that that decision
of the Congress should be given weight as an
appropriate interpretation of the equal
protection clause of the Constitution.
"Freedom of the individual is based upon
the freedom of privacy," he said. "The
Attorney General's opinion is that the use of
wiretaps in cases of internal security needs no
court warrant. A free country cannot live that
way. Communists live that way. We can only
have a free country if we all feel free to talk."
| The Cavalier daily Monday, March 1, 1971 | |