Vol. 2 No. 6 (June, 1992) pp. 89-90
WILLIAM WAYNE JUSTICE: A JUDICIAL BIOGRAPHY by Frank R. Kemerer.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. 481 pp.
Reviewed by Gerald N. Rosenberg, Department of Political Science
and School of Law, University of Chicago.
Judicial biographies offer a rare opportunity to peer into the
lives of judges, among our most secretive public officials. To
most Americans, judges deal in a mysterious process, complete
with peculiar forms of language, behavior and dress. They work in
libraries and studies, out of the public eye. They are seldom
interviewed by reporters. Most Americans know little of what lies
behind those black robes.
In this readable and interesting judicial biography, Kemerer
illuminates the life of Judge William Wayne Justice, a federal
district court judge for the Eastern District of Texas. And what
better judge to study than one named Justice, one who compiled a
record studded with liberal decisions. From statewide school
desegregation (UNITED STATES V. TEXAS) to public school education
of undocumented aliens (DOE V. PLYER) to statewide prison reform
(RUIZ V. ESTELLE), Justice wrote opinions requiring wholesale
revamping of state institutions. While not all of his decisions
were upheld or implemented, they made a name for Justice.
The book is divided into two parts. The first part, roughly 100
pages, contains four chapters examining Judge Justice's
background, from his childhood through his appointment to the
bench. The second part, nearly 300 pages, covers 11 areas of the
law and discusses in depth many of Justice's decisions. A short
concluding chapters speaks to his judicial philosophy. The re-
search is based largely on extensive interviews with lawyers,
former clerks, and the judge himself.
The book has many strengths. In the second part, Kemerer goes to
great lengths to provide the background to many of Justice's
important decisions. The reader learns of the inhumane conditions
in many state-run institutions, of the pervasiveness of
race-based segregation throughout the state. Interviews with
lawyers and other key players in the cases bring them fully to
life. Throughout the book, Kemerer provides colorful descriptions
of law- yers in small-town Texas life, and highlights the
political nature of the judiciary. Perhaps the most poignant
example is that while most of his neighbors used the Sears
catalog in their outhouses, William Wayne Justice, the child of a
lawyer, was privileged to rely on discarded advance sheets of the
SOUTHWESTERN REPORTER! (p. 7) The reader can't help but wonder if
this early experience influenced the future judge's view of
precedent.
More seriously, Kemerer does a good job of illuminating the
political nature of the judiciary. For example, he shows how
Justice secured his appointment to the bench through his
political connections. He was a close friend of U.S. Senator
Ralph Yarborough, a leader of the liberal wing of the Texas
Democratic party. He also was an active supporter of Lyndon
Johnson, deftly managing to maintain loyalty to both. While
Justice was a competent lawyer, Kemerer shows how he used these
connections to secure the appointment. Similarly, Kemerer
repeatedly stresses how lawyers forum-shopped, both seeking to
litigate before Justice and avoiding his court at all costs.
Rather than being above or removed from politics, Justice and his
court were right in the middle of it.
Biographies are at their best when they show how life experiences
influence the decisions that make their subject worthy of study,
when they illuminate where beliefs and motivations originate and
how they shape and mold actions. Kemerer implicitly raises
several intriguing questions about the motivations of Judge
Justice. For example, Justice was evidently enamored of the
Eastern, liberal establishment, particularly Harvard, where he
was a regular participant in the trial advocacy program. He and
his wife sent their daughter to boarding school and to an elite
Eastern college, and from August 1977 to September 1991, 69% of
his clerks came from Harvard, Michigan, Stanford and Yale law
schools while only 11% came from
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Texas law schools (compared to 100% from Texas law schools from
July 1968 through July 1977). One of his great joys, he told
Kemerer, was sitting by designation on the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the D.C. Circuit, and he always hoped to be elevated to the
U.S. Circuit Court for the Fifth Circuit. But Kemerer does not
explore the possible relevance of this character trait to
Justice's judicial career. Was Justice writing opinions to please
what he perceived to be the liberal establishment? Was he
selecting clerks from the leading law schools (particularly
Harvard) to catch the attention of their faculties? Was he
looking outside of Texas for the support that was lacking within
the state? Similarly, Justice, both as a lawyer and as a U.S.
Attorney, essentially accepted racial segregation as a way of
life. Yet, as a judge, he became a crusader for civil rights.
What brought about the change? Did he finally feel free to act as
he believed? Was he playing to the liberal establishment?
Questions like these, about the relevance of his background and
motivations to his decisions, are not explored.
Perhaps the greatest challenge to biographers is to treat their
subjects with balance. Without such balance, the reader sees only
one side of the subject, strengths and not weaknesses. Like many
before him, Kemerer lacks critical distance. Judge Justice may
have often been courageous, but he wasn't always right, and his
opponents weren't always mean-spirited, narrow-minded, small-
thinking judges, politicians, and officials, substituting their
ideology and biases for Justice's noble sentiments. While one can
admire Judge Justice, it does seem to stretch credulity to
suggest that he was "perhaps the single most influential
agent for change in twentieth-century Texas history." (p. 3)
Kemerer gives the reader the sense that even Justice himself
would scoff at such a notion.
Overall, then, Kemerer provides the academic reader with the
background to some of Justice's most important decisions, and the
general reader with some sense of the life of a well-known
federal judge. For both those who believe that liberal activist
judges are motivated solely by arrogance and an attitude that
they know better than ordinary folks, and for those who believe
that justice is distinct from politics, Kemerer provides a
refreshing counterpoint.
Copyright 1992