Abe Fortas

Uncommon card · No. 167616

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 Rhodes College and Yale Law School. He later became a law professor at Yale and then an advisor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Fortas worked at the Department of the Interior under President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and was appointed by President Harry S. Truman to delegations that helped set up the United Nations in 1945. In 1948, Fortas represented Lyndon B. Johnson in the dispute over the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination, and he formed close ties with Johnson. Fortas also represented Clarence Earl Gideon before the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case Gideon v. Wainwright, involving the right to counsel. Nominated by Johnson to the Supreme Court in 1965, Fortas was confirmed by the Senate, and maintained a close working relationship...

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