Walter Pollak
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Walter Pollak
Walter Pollak (1887–1940) was a 20th-century American civil liberties lawyer, who established important precedents while working with other leading radical lawyers in the 1920s and 1930s. His best known cases involved the defense before the Supreme Court of Communist Benjamin Gitlow and the Scottsboro Boys. Background Walter Heilprin Pollak was born on June 4, 1887, in Summit, New Jersey to Gustav Pollak (born circa 1849 in Vienna, Austria; died 1919) and Celia Heilprin in a family of "bookish, nonreligious Jews" who had come to the States in the 1850s. His father was an editor and writer for ''The Nation'' magazine. He had two older siblings: a brother, Francis D. Pollak (born in 1876), who also became a lawyer, and a sister, Meta Pollak (born in 1879). Walter Pollak attended DeWitt Clinton High School and then Columbia University in New York City. In 1907, he graduated from Harvard University and in 1910 from Harvard Law School. Career Pollak first joined the law firm o ...
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Civil Liberties
Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties may include the Freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, Freedom of the press, freedom of press, freedom of religion, Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, the right to security and liberty, freedom of speech, the right to privacy, the right to Equality before the law, equal treatment under the law and due process, the right to a fair trial, and the right to life. Other civil liberties include the Right to property, right to own property, the Self-defense, right to defend oneself, and the right to bodily integrity. Within the distinctions between civil liberties and other types of liberty, distinctions exist between positive liberty/Negative and positive rights, positive rights and negative liberty/Negative and positi ...
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Max Lowenthal
Max Lowenthal (1888–1971) was a Washington, DC, political figure in all three branches of the federal government in the 1930s and 1940s, during which time he was closely associated with the rising career of Harry S. Truman; he served under Oscar R. Ewing on an "unofficial policy group" within the Truman administration (1947–1952). Background Mordechai Lowenthal was born on February 26, 1888, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In the 1870s, his parents Nathan (Naphtali) Lowenthal and Gertrude (Nahamah) Gitel, Orthodox Jewish, emigrated from Kovno (now Kaunas), Lithuania, to Minnesota. At a young age, he started using the more "American" name of Max. He had two older siblings, of whom only one survived childhood. He graduated from North High School in 1905, first in his class. He also attended Talmud Torah, where he learned Hebrew. He received a BA in 1909 from the University of Minnesota and graduated in 1912 from Harvard Law School, where he began a lifelong friendship w ...
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Freedom Of Speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognised as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law by the United Nations. Many countries have constitutional law that protects free speech. Terms like ''free speech'', ''freedom of speech,'' and ''freedom of expression'' are used interchangeably in political discourse. However, in a legal sense, the freedom of expression includes any activity of seeking, receiving, and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. Article 19 of the UDHR states that "everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference" and "everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas of all kinds, ...
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United States Bill Of Rights
The United States Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed following the often bitter 1787–88 debate over the ratification of the Constitution and written to address the objections raised by Anti-Federalists, the Bill of Rights amendments add to the Constitution specific guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government's power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people. The concepts codified in these amendments are built upon those in earlier documents, especially the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), as well as the Northwest Ordinance (1787), the English Bill of Rights (1689), and Magna Carta (1215). Largely because of the efforts of Representative James Madison, who studied the deficiencies of the Constitution pointed out by anti-feder ...
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Incorporation Of The Bill Of Rights
In United States constitutional law, incorporation is the doctrine by which portions of the Bill of Rights have been made applicable to the states. When the Bill of Rights was ratified, the courts held that its protections extended only to the actions of the federal government and that the Bill of Rights did not place limitations on the authority of the state and local governments. However, the post–Civil War era, beginning in 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment, which declared the abolition of slavery, gave rise to the incorporation of other amendments, applying more rights to the states and people over time. Gradually, various portions of the Bill of Rights have been held to be applicable to the state and local governments by incorporation through the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 and the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. Prior to the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment and the development of the incorporation doctrine, the Supreme Court in 1833 held in ''Barron v. Baltimor ...
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Fourteenth Amendment To The United States Constitution
The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. Often considered as one of the most consequential amendments, it addresses citizenship rights and equal protection under the law and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War. The amendment was bitterly contested, particularly by the states of the defeated Confederacy, which were forced to ratify it in order to regain representation in Congress. The amendment, particularly its first section, is one of the most litigated parts of the Constitution, forming the basis for landmark Supreme Court decisions such as ''Brown v. Board of Education'' (1954) regarding racial segregation, ''Roe v. Wade'' (1973) regarding abortion ( overturned in 2022), ''Bush v. Gore'' (2000) regarding the 2000 presidential election, and ''Obergefell v. Hodges'' (2015) regarding same-sex marriage. The amendment ...
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Due Process Clause
In United States constitutional law, a Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, which prohibits arbitrary deprivation of "life, liberty, or property" by the government except as authorized by law. The U.S. Supreme Court interprets these clauses broadly, concluding that they provide three protections: procedural due process (in civil and criminal proceedings); substantive due process, a prohibition against vague laws; and as the vehicle for the incorporation of the Bill of Rights. Text The clause in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: The clause in Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: Background Clause 39 of Magna Carta provided: The phrase "due process of law" first appeared in a statutory rendition of the Magna Carta in 1354 during the reign of Edward III of England, as follows: Drafting New York was the only state that asked ...
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Gitlow V
Gitlow is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Benjamin Gitlow (1891–1965), American politician and author * Stuart Gitlow (born 1962), American psychiatrist See also *Gitlow v. New York ''Gitlow v. New York'', 268 U.S. 652 (1925), was a List of landmark court decisions in the United States, landmark decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, United States Supreme Court holding that the Fourteenth Amendment to the United S ... {{Short pages monitor ...
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American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". The ACLU works through litigation and lobbying, and has over 1,800,000 members as of July 2018, with an annual budget of over $300 million. Affiliates of the ACLU are active in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The ACLU provides legal assistance in cases where it considers civil liberties to be at risk. Legal support from the ACLU can take the form of direct legal representation or preparation of '' amicus curiae'' briefs expressing legal arguments when another law firm is already providing representation. In addition to representing persons and organizations in lawsuits, the ACLU lobbies for policy positions that have been established by its board of directors. Current positions of the ACLU include opposing the ...
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Carol Weiss King
Carol Weiss King (24 August 1895 – 22 January 1952) was a well-known immigration lawyer, key founder of the International Juridical Association, and a founding member of the National Lawyers Guild in the United States. Her left-leaning career spanned from the Palmer Raids to the McCarthy Era. Background Born August 24, 1895, Carol Weiss was the youngest child of Samuel William Weiss and Carrie Stix. Her father was a founder of the law firm of Frank and Weiss (1875–1880), then practiced alone (1880–1910). Her eldest brother, William S. Weiss, continued their father's firm until forced to stop by multiple sclerosis. Another older brother, Louis S. Weiss, also entered his father's first Frank and Weiss, which developed into today's Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. In 1912, Weiss entered Barnard College as a member of the Class of 1916. Archives show many sides of her college life. In 1913, she appeared in a school play, partook in "Mysteries" ( ...
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Isaac Shorr
Isaac Shorr (ca. 1884–1964) was a 20th-century American immigration and naturalization lawyer and philosophical anarchist who worked with other important, radical lawyers in the 1920s–1940s and whose legal partners included: Swinburne Hale, Walter Nelles, Joseph R. Brodsky, and Carol Weiss King. Background Isaac Shorr was born about 1882 in Russia (at that time, the Russian Empire). In 1904, his family emigrated to the United States. In 1913, he graduated from New York University School of Law after studying at night and working by day as a cigarmaker. In 1915, he was admitted to the New York bar. Career During World War I, Shorr was a partner of Hale, Nelles, and Shorr, which "defended radicals." In 1920, Hale wrote to Tom Mooney, "We are in a hot bed of repression here, with only a very few lawyers who are willing and able to handle the situation, and who are hopelessly overworked." His partners were Swinburne Hale and Walter Nelles. Carlo Tresca, a prominent Italia ...
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