U.S. Supreme Court law clerks, October 1947 term. From left, front row: Stanley L. Temko (law clerk to Wiley Blount Rutledge Jr.), Lawrence F. Ebb (Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson), John A. Thompson (Vinson) and Robert B. von Mehren (Justice Stanley Forman Reed). Middle row: James M. Marsh (Justice Robert H. Jackson), Albert J. Rosenthal (Justice Felix Frankfurter), James Lake (Justice Harold Hitz Burton), John Paul Stevens (Rutledge) and John B. Spitzer (Reed). Back row: Bruce K. Griswold (Burton), William Joslin (Justice Hugo Black), Eugene Gressman (Justice Frank Murphy), Irving J. Helman (Frankfurter) and Stanley E. Sparrowe (Justice William O. Douglas).
By one measure, the death last summer of Justice John Paul Stevens means that the current term of the U.S. Supreme Court is the first in almost 44 years that is missing his living connection to the court and its vital work.
Stevens was appointed to the court in 1975. He retired from active service in 2010 at age 90. But even in senior status, he was a visible giant of the law. He continued to speak and to write, producing multiple books and articles. He remained deeply relevant to what the Supreme Court is in the U.S. government, in law and public service, and to people in the U.S. and globally.
