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Privacy Rights in the Digital Age

Warren, Earl

by Lissa N. Snyders
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The fourteenth Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. During his time as Chief Justice, Warren demonstrated strong leadership and was known for his ability to obtain consensus or majority rulings on major decisions.

Warren was born on March 19, 1891, in Los Angeles, California. He earned his BA in political science in 1912. Two years later, he completed his JD from the University of California Berkeley School of Law. In 1917, he enlisted in the army and earned the rank of first lieutenant before being discharged in 1918 at the end of World War I.

After leaving the army, Warren worked as a clerk for the Judicial Committee of the California State Assembly for one legislative session (1919–1920). He then accepted a position as deputy district attorney for Alameda County and worked in this role for five years. In 1925, Warren received a vacancy appointment for district attorney of Alameda County. After his appointment, Warren married Nina Palmquist Meyers and adopted her son from her first marriage; the couple went on to have five more children. Warren was reelected as district attorney general three times, in part because of his reputation for being tough on crime and corruption.

Earl Warren became the attorney general (AG) for the state of California in 1939 and held the position until 1943. As AG, he continued to fight corruption and organized crime. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he initially opposed discrimination against Japanese Americans as unconstitutional. Eventually, however, he became an outspoken and influential proponent of Japanese internment. (He only expressed regret for his actions in his posthumously published memoirs.) Warren then served three consecutive terms as governor of California, from 1943 to 1953. As governor, he reformed California's prison system, increased pensions for the elderly, built numerous schools and hospitals, and developed programs focusing on mental health and disabilities.

Although Warren had no previous experience as a judge, President Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in 1953, after the death of Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson. The Warren Court proved to be more liberal than Eisenhower had anticipated. Warren oversaw several landmark decisions by the Supreme Court. In 1954, he led the Court to end racial segregation in schools in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954). By obtaining a unanimous decision, Warren hoped to hasten public acceptance of the ruling. He was able to secure unanimous decisions in all subsequent desegregation cases during his tenure as Chief Justice. During the McCarthy era, the Court repeatedly upheld individual rights in cases such as Sweezy v. New Hampshire, 354 U.S. 234 (1957), putting Warren further at odds with President Eisenhower.

Through two court cases, the Warren Court promoted equal representation. In Baker v. Carr in 1963, the Court determined that federal courts have the authority to rule on state redistricting cases. This was followed by Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964), which held that state legislature districts must represent roughly the same proportion of the population. This came to be known as the “one man, one vote” ruling, and it helped ensure that sparsely populated rural areas were not given greater legislative representation than densely populated cities.

Multiple Warren Court rulings protected or expanded the rights of criminal defendants. In 1961, the Court ruled in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 (1961), that state courts cannot admit evidence obtained through unreasonable search and seizure, which is prohibited by the Fourth Amendment. (By this time, such evidence was already inadmissible in federal courts.) The right to an attorney for those who cannot afford one was extended to defendants in state courts in Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963). The 1966 ruling in Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), required that the legal rights of persons being interrogated be clearly explained to them. These rights are now commonly called Miranda rights.

After the death of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, Warren reluctantly joined the Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy formed by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Under his leadership as chair of the investigation, it became known unofficially as the Warren Commission. The commission determined that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone and found no evidence of a conspiracy.

In 1965, in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that privacy is a constitutional right. Although the right to privacy is not directly mentioned in the Constitution, the Court ruled that the Bill of Rights as a whole protects citizens from governmental intrusion.

Warren retired from the Supreme Court on June 23, 1969. He was succeeded as Chief Justice by Warren E. Burger. Earl Warren died on July 9, 1974, in Washington, DC, and is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Further Reading

1 

Christman, Henry M., ed. The Public Papers of Chief Justice Earl Warren, rev. ed. New York: Capricorn Books, 1966

2 

Cray, Ed. Chief Justice: A Biography of Earl Warren. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.

3 

Frantz, Joe B., interviewer. Transcript, Earl Warren Oral History Interview I. September 21, 1971. Internet Copy, LBJ Library. http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/oralhistory.hom/Warren-E/Warren-e.PDF.

4 

Newton, Jim. Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.

5 

Pollack, Jack H. The Judge Who Changed America. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1979.

6 

Schwartz, Bernard, ed. The Warren Court: A Retrospective. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

7 

Warren, Earl. The Memoirs of Earl Warren. Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1977.

See also: Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; Griswold v. Connecticut; Mapp v. Ohio; Supreme Court of the United States

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Snyders, Lissa N. "Warren, Earl." Privacy Rights in the Digital Age, edited by Christopher T. Anglim & JD, Salem Press, 2016. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=PRDA_0223.
APA 7th
Snyders, L. N. (2016). Warren, Earl. In C. Anglim & JD (Ed.), Privacy Rights in the Digital Age. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Snyders, Lissa N. "Warren, Earl." Edited by Christopher T. Anglim & JD. Privacy Rights in the Digital Age. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2016. Accessed September 17, 2025. online.salempress.com.