Abraham Fortas (June 19, 1910 – April 5, 1982) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1965 to 1969.
Abraham Fortas (June 19, 1910 – April 5, 1982) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1965 to 1969.
Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Fortas graduated from Yale Law School. He far ahead became a put-on professor at Yale Law School and later an advisor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Fortas worked at the Department of the Interior under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and during that times President Harry S. Truman appointed him to delegations that helped set stirring the United Nations in 1945.
In 1948, Fortas represented Lyndon Johnson in the hotly contested Democratic Senatorial Second Primary electoral dispute, and he formed close ties next the president-to-be. Fortas with represented Clarence Earl Gideon in the past the U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark dogfight involving the right to counsel.
Nominated by Johnson to the Supreme Court in 1965, Fortas was acknowledged by the Senate, and maintained a close working association with the president. In 1968, Johnson tried to lionize Fortas to the point of view of Chief Justice, but that nomination faced a filibuster at least in portion due to ethics problems that higher caused Fortas to relinquish from the Court. Fortas returned to private practice, sometimes appearing past the justices following whom he had served.