John Paul Frank (November 10, 1917 – September 7, 2002) was an American lawyer and scholar involved in landmark civil rights, school desegregation, and criminal procedure cases before the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

Biography

Frank attended the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

and obtained a B.A. and M.A. in history. In 1940, Frank graduated with an LL.B. from the

University of Wisconsin Law School The University of Wisconsin Law School is the professional graduate law school of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Located in Madison, Wisconsin, the school was founded in 1868. The University of Wisconsin Law School is guided by a "law in ...

with

Order of the Coif The Order of the Coif is an honor society for United States law school graduates. The name is a reference to the ancient English order of advocates, the serjeants-at-law, whose courtroom attire included a coif—a white lawn or silk skullcap, whi ...

honors. He clerked for Justice

Hugo Black Hugo Lafayette Black (February 27, 1886 – September 25, 1971) was an American lawyer, politician, and jurist who served as a U.S. Senator from Alabama from 1927 to 1937 and as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1937 to 1971. A ...

of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1942 to 1943. Frank spent the next two years as the assistant to the

Secretary of the Interior Secretary of the Interior may refer to: * Secretary of the Interior (Mexico) * Interior Secretary of Pakistan * Secretary of the Interior and Local Government (Philippines) * United States Secretary of the Interior See also

*Interior ministry ...

and then to the

U.S. Attorney General The United States attorney general (AG) is the head of the United States Department of Justice, and is the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government of the United States. The attorney general serves as the principal advisor to the p ...

. He studied at

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

and obtained a S.J.D. in 1947. In 1946, he joined the faculty of the Indiana University, Bloomington School of Law. He returned to Yale Law School to teach from 1949 to 1954, when he joined the law firm of Lewis & Roca in

Phoenix, Arizona Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...

Notable legal activity

Frank helped then-Chief Counsel for the

NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (NAACP LDF, the Legal Defense Fund, or LDF) is a leading United States civil rights organization and law firm based in New York City. LDF is wholly independent and separate from the NAACP. Altho ...

Thurgood Marshall Thurgood Marshall (July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American civil rights lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 until 1991. He was the Supreme Court's first African-A ...

, formulate strategy in the school desegregation case of ''

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segrega ...

'' (1954). Frank argued the case of ''

Miranda v. Arizona ''Miranda v. Arizona'', 384 U.S. 436 (1966), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution restricts prosecutors from using a person's statements made in response to ...

'' (1966), which required that police inform criminal suspects of their rights. In ''

Bates v. State Bar of Arizona ''Bates v. State Bar of Arizona'', 433 U.S. 350 (1977), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the right of lawyers to advertise their services.. In holding that lawyer advertising was commercial speech entitled to prote ...

'' (1977), Frank unsuccessfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court that state bar limits on attorney advertising were consistent with the right to free speech under the First Amendment. Frank's papers are held at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library is ...

Personal life

In 1940, he married Lorraine Weiss (June 7, 1923 – December 22, 2005), a graduate of

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

, and they had five children.

Selected publications

* * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Frank, John Paul 1917 births 2002 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Letters and Science alumni Yale Law School alumni Yale Law School faculty Indiana University faculty Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States 20th-century American lawyers American legal scholars Legal writers American political writers American scholars of constitutional law People from Appleton, Wisconsin Lawyers from Phoenix, Arizona