Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 – October 9, 1954) was an American lawyer, jurist, and politician who served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1941 until his death in 1954.

Jackson developed a reputation as one of the best writers on the Supreme Court and one of the most committed to enforcing due process as protection from overreaching federal agencies.

[5] Jackson was born on his family's farm in Spring Creek Township, Warren County, Pennsylvania, on February 13, 1892, and was raised in Frewsburg, New York.

[12] In 1917, Jackson was recruited to work for Penney, Killeen & Nye, a leading Buffalo firm, primarily defending the International Railway Company in trials and appeals.

[9] Over the next 15 years, he built a successful practice, and became a leading lawyer in New York State; he also enhanced his reputation nationally, through leadership roles with bar associations and other legal organizations.

They abandoned their effort to create a groundswell of support for Jackson's gubernatorial candidacy when they ran into resistance from state Democratic Party leaders.

As Attorney General, Jackson supported a bill introduced by Sam Hobbs that would have legalized wiretapping by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or any other government agency, if it was suspected that a felony was occurring.

In 1943, Jackson wrote the majority opinion in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, which overturned a public school regulation making it mandatory to salute the flag, and imposing penalties of expulsion and prosecution upon students who failed to comply.

[citation needed] Justices Jackson and Hugo Black had profound professional and personal disagreements dating back to October 1941, the first term during which they served together on the Supreme Court.

According to Dennis Hutchinson, editor of The Supreme Court Review, Jackson objected to Black's practice of importing his personal preferences into his jurisprudence.

On April 3, 1945, the Southern Conference for Human Welfare held a dinner, at which it honored Justice Black as the 1945 recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Award.

The controversy was heavily covered in the press, casting the New Deal Court in a negative light, and had the effect of tarnishing Jackson's reputation in the years that followed.

[46] After receiving a response from Truman in which he denied having given consideration to, or having even heard of, the rumor of Black's threatened resignation, Jackson rashly fired off a second cable to Congress, on June 10.

[49] The Schenck decision promulgated the "clear and present danger test," which provided the standard for sustaining a conviction when speech is relied upon as evidence that an offense has been committed.

The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances, and are of such a nature as to create a "clear and present danger" that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.

[56] In Czechoslovakia, a Communist organization disguised as a competing political faction secretly established its roots in key control positions "of police and information services.

"[59] Jackson goes on to describe the application of the test to Communists, when determining the constitutionality of the Smith Act facially, or as applied as one of "...apprais[ing] imponderables, including international and national phenomena, which baffle the best informed foreign offices and our most experienced politicians.

"[61] Jackson concludes his First Amendment analysis in Dennis by asserting that: The authors of the "clear and present danger test" never applied it to a case like this, nor would I.

If applied as it is proposed here, it means that the Communist plotting is protected during its period of incubation; its preliminary stages of organization and preparation are immune from the law; the Government can move only after imminent action is manifest, when it would, of course, be too late.

[46]In the end, the Court applied its own version of the "clear and present danger test" in Dennis,[62] essentially disregarding the analytical elements of probability and temporality which had previously appeared to be requirements of the doctrine.

[63] Jackson, however, as one commentator put it, expressed in Dennis (at least with regards to Communists) that, "when used as part of a conspiracy to act illegally, speech loses its First Amendment protection.

"[64] Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, there was great suspicion surrounding Japanese-Americans, particularly those residing on the West Coast of the United States.

With this executive order, the War Department was able to declare that all United States citizens of Japanese ancestry were prohibited from areas in California that were deemed unsafe for Japanese-American habitation for national security purposes, and it forced them into internment camps.

[66]Jackson was not concerned in evaluating the validity of DeWitt's claim that the internment of Japanese citizens on the West Coast was necessary for national security purposes, but whether this would set a precedent of war-time racial discrimination that would be used to strip individual liberties.

In Part 1 of Jackson's draft concurrence in Brown, he wrote that he went to school where "Negro pupils were very few" and that he was "predisposed to the conclusion that segregation elsewhere has outlived whatever justification it may have had."

Despite his own opinions regarding desegregation, Jackson acknowledged the inability of the Court to "eradicate" the "fears, prides and prejudices" that made segregation an important social practice in the South.

Jackson concluded, "I simply cannot find in the conventional material of constitutional interpretation any justification for saying" that segregated schools violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

One suggestion that Warren took from Jackson was adding the following sentence: "Negroes have achieved outstanding success in the arts and sciences, as well as in the business and professional world.

Jackson was a staunch defender (along with Felix Frankfurter) of procedural due process, for the rule of law that protects members of the public from overreaching by government agencies.

[74] In the words of defendant Albert Speer, the Nazi Minister of Armaments and War Production, The trial began with the grand, devastating opening address by the Chief American Prosecutor, Justice Robert H. Jackson.