Potter Stewart papers

Potter Stewart was born on January 23, 1915, in Jackson, Michigan, but grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. He received his undergraduate degree from Yale University in 1937. He was awarded a Henry Fellowship to study at Cambridge University for the 1937-1938 academic year. Stewart then entered Yale Law School, where he became an editor of the Yale Law Journal and graduated in 1941. He worked as a law clerk in the New York firm of Debevoise, Stevenson, Plimpton, and Page from September 1941 to April 1942, resigning to enter the United States Navy. After completing his military service, he rejoined the firm as an associate from October 1945 until July 1946. In 1947, Stewart returned to Cincinnati and joined the firm of Dinsmore, Shohl, Sawyer, and Dinsmore. In addition to his practice, Stewart served two terms on the Cincinnati City Council.

In 1954, President Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Stewart to fill a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Three years later, Steward received a recess appointment from Eisenhower to the United States Supreme Court to replace fellow Ohioan Harold Hitz Burton. He was confirmed by the Senate in 1958. Stewart served on the Supreme Court until July 3, 1981, when he assumed senior status and took designated assignments until his death.

During Stewart's tenure on the Supreme Court, he was often asked whether or not he would label himself as a liberal or a conservative. Stewart would reply that he did not think of himself as either one or as a swing justice. At the news conference announcing his retirement in 1981, Stewart elaborated: "I've thought of myself as deciding every case correctly, and I've never thought of myself in terms of putting a label on myself except trying to be a good lawyer and looking at every case under the Constitution and the law, even though I might think it an unwise law. I think it's the first duty of a Justice to remove from his judicial work his own moral, philosophical, political or religious beliefs and not think of himself as being here as some great big philosopher king. It's not a hierarchical organization. Your boss is only the Constitution and the law."

Throughout his service on the Supreme Court, Stewart maintained his pragmatic approach of deciding cases based upon their specific facts. Stewart is perhaps most widely know to the general public for the portion of his concurring opinion in the case of Jacobellis v. Ohio. He stated that, in attempting to define what constituted hard core pornography, "I know it when I see it."

After his retirement from the Supreme Court, Stewart was appointed in July 1983 as a member of President Reagan's Commission on Organized Crime. He died on December 7, 1985, in Hanover, New Hampshire and was survived by his wife, Mary Ann Bertles, and their three children, Harriet S. Virkstis, Potter Stewart, Jr., and David Bertles Stewart.