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2 unusual facts about Abe Fortas


Flaming Creatures

During the confirmation hearings for the chief justice nomination of Abe Fortas, James Clancy, representing Citizens for Decent Literature, showed Flaming Creatures in a room in the capital among other material, inviting senators to view the sorts of things that Fortas had held in several decisions did not constitute obscenity.

Gideon's Trumpet

A made-for-TV movie based on the book was released in 1980, starring Henry Fonda as Clarence Earl Gideon, José Ferrer as Abe Fortas and John Houseman as Earl Warren (though Warren's name was never mentioned in the film; he was billed simply as "The Chief Justice").


Ideological leanings of U.S. Supreme Court justices

President Dwight Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren to be Chief Justice in 1953, and both graphs indicate that the Court then turned in a more liberal direction as Warren grew substantially more liberal and especially when he was joined by strong liberal justices William Brennan, Arthur Goldberg, Abe Fortas, and Thurgood Marshall (though Justices Black and Felix Frankfurter became more conservative over time).

Youth activism

In the 1960s, the Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas handed out two landmark case decisions in favor of youth rights, Tinker v. Des Moines and In re Gault.


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