Owen Josephus Roberts was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1930 to 1945.
24 Facts About Owen Roberts
2.
Owen Roberts was easily confirmed and took his position on the court in May 1930.
3.
Owen Roberts was one of three Justices, along with Robert H Jackson and Frank Murphy, to vote against Roosevelt's orders for Japanese American internment camps in Korematsu v United States as well as the lone judge to dissent in the case of Smith v Allwright, which ruled white primaries unconstitutional.
4.
Owen Roberts served as the Dean of his alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania Law School, from 1948 to 1951.
5.
Owen Roberts was born in Philadelphia and attended Germantown Academy and enrolled at the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 16 where he studied Greek, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was the editor of The Daily Pennsylvanian.
6.
Owen Roberts first gained notice as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia.
7.
Owen Roberts was appointed by President Calvin Coolidge to investigate oil reserve scandals, known as the Teapot Dome scandal.
8.
Owen Roberts was nominated by President Herbert Hoover on May 9,1930, as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of the Supreme Court, to succeed Edward Terry Sanford.
9.
In contrast to Parker, Owen Roberts was confirmed by voice vote on May 20,1930.
10.
Owen Roberts took the judicial oath of office on June 2,1930.
11.
Owen Roberts had sided with the four conservative justices in finding a similar state minimum wage in New York unconstitutional in June 1936.
12.
However, Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes contended in his autobiographical notes that Roosevelt's attempt to pack the court "had not the slightest effect" on the Court's ruling in the Parrish case and records showed that Owen Roberts indicated his desire to uphold Washington state's minimum wage law two months prior to Roosevelt's court-packing announcement in December 1936.
13.
Owen Roberts was appointed by Roosevelt to head the commission investigating the attack on Pearl Harbor; his report was published in 1942 and was highly critical of the US military.
14.
Owen Roberts had doffed his robes, taken to the platform in his frantic apprehensions and demanded that we immediately unite with Great Britain in a single nation.
15.
Owen Roberts could be depended on not to cast any stain upon it in its infancy.
16.
The second Owen Roberts Commission was established in 1943 to consolidate earlier efforts on a national basis with the US Army to help protect monuments, fine arts, and archives in war zones.
17.
Owen Roberts played a key role in the creation of the OSS Art Looting Investigation Unit which investigated and documented Nazi plunder networks in Europe.
18.
Owen Roberts became frustrated with the willingness of the new justices to overturn precedent and with what he saw as their result-oriented liberalism as judges.
19.
Shortly after leaving the Court, Owen Roberts reportedly burned all of his legal and judicial papers.
20.
Owen Roberts did prepare a short memorandum discussing his alleged change of stance around the time of the court-packing effort, which he left in the hands of Justice Felix Frankfurter.
21.
In 1946, Owen Roberts was the first layperson elected to serve as President of the House of Deputies for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church.
22.
Owen Roberts served as the Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 1948 to 1951.
23.
Owen Roberts died at his Chester County, Pennsylvania, farm known as the Strickland-Roberts Homestead after a four-month illness.
24.
Owen Roberts was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Caldwell Rogers, and daughter, Elizabeth Hamilton.