Advocacy in Constitutional Choice: The Cramer Treason Case, 1942–1945 |
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| Authors: | J. Woodford Howard Jr. |
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| Affiliation: | J. Woodford Howard, Jr., is Thomas P. Stran Professor of Political Science, The Johns Hopkins University. A.B. 1952, Duke University;M.P.A. 1954, MA. 1955, Ph.D. 1959, Princeton University. The author wishes to thank Richard T. Davis, Philip Elman, James Willard Hurst, Dennis J. Hutchinson, Carl McGowan, Harold R. Medina, Standish F. Medina, Phil C. Neal, Jonathan J. Rusch, and David Wigdor for their assistance during preparation of this article. |
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| Abstract: | How did advocacy at each level of the federal judiciary help shape the leading decision in American law of treason? This article, adapted from a forthcoming biography of Judge Harold R. Medina, is a case study based on Justice Department archives and the personal papers of Medina, Charles Fahy, and seven Supreme Court Justices. It analyzes the whole case, from the lawyers’standpoint, to illuminate the role of counsel in transforming a minor wartime incident into the first treason case decided on the merits by the Supreme Court and the tribunal's only decision during World War II to limit constitutional war powers. Accenting litigation strategy and the use of history in constitutional interpretation, it is a story also of the struggle by counsel on both sides of the case to uphold high professional standards amid the passions of total war. |
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