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Supreme Court · Associate Justice

Tom Clark

Democratic appointee: Appointed by Harry S. Truman (D)

Served 1949–1967 · 18 terms

Confirmed 73–8

Biography

Thomas Campbell Clark was an American lawyer who served as the 59th United States attorney general from 1945 to 1949 and as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1949 to 1967.

Source: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ideology over time

Clark and the 16 justices who overlapped with Clark, 1949–1966

−8−6−4−20+21950195519601965More conservativeMore liberalHarlanFrankfurterBurtonStewartClarkWhiteBlackBrennanWarrenFortasDouglas
  • Tom Clark
  • 95% credible interval
  • Peer, appointed by a Democrat
  • Peer, appointed by a Republican
  • Court median
How to read this

Martin–Quinn scores place each justice on a single liberal–conservative dimension, estimated from their votes across terms, with scores allowed to shift from one term to the next. Higher is more conservative. The shaded band is the credible interval: wider when the record is thin, especially in a justice’s first terms, and narrower as votes accumulate.

Where Clark sits among all justices

Career average, every justice in the data set

−4−20+2+4−0.211.19

Clark’s range across terms

Served alongside Clark

16 justices

Closest career average first. Filled dot: the peer. Ring: Clark.

JusticeTogetherCareer avg
Byron White1961–1966career average 0.44 versus Clark at 0.47Felix Frankfurter1949–1961career average 0.52 versus Clark at 0.47Potter Stewart1958–1966career average 0.40 versus Clark at 0.47Stanley Reed1949–1956career average 0.37 versus Clark at 0.47Robert Jackson1949–1953career average 0.70 versus Clark at 0.47Harold Burton1949–1958career average 1.00 versus Clark at 0.47Frederick Vinson1949–1952career average 1.03 versus Clark at 0.47Sherman Minton1949–1956career average 1.10 versus Clark at 0.47Charles Whittaker1956–1961career average 1.17 versus Clark at 0.47John Harlan1954–1966career average 1.62 versus Clark at 0.47Arthur Goldberg1962–1964career average −1.07 versus Clark at 0.47Earl Warren1953–1966career average −1.26 versus Clark at 0.47Abe Fortas1965–1966career average −1.32 versus Clark at 0.47Hugo Black1949–1966career average −1.76 versus Clark at 0.47William Brennan1956–1966career average −1.78 versus Clark at 0.47William Douglas1949–1966career average −4.70 versus Clark at 0.47

How Clark voted

Every argued case Clark took part in, newest first, with how Clark voted in each: with the majority, in dissent, or in an equally divided Court. A Liberal or Conservative tag is the Supreme Court Database’s coding of who prevailed in the case, not a rating of the justices.

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    Data notes

    The Decisions page’s argued cases with this justice’s vote from the Supreme Court Database. “Majority” includes a concurrence; a vote that dissented in part is coded by the side the justice took overall. Cases the justice sat out and equally divided cases are left out of the percentages. “Wrote” means authored an opinion. Source: Supreme Court Database (Spaeth et al.).

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    Scores: Martin, Andrew D. and Kevin M. Quinn. 2002. “Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999.” Political Analysis 10:134–153, from mqscores.wustl.edu. Appointment data: Federal Judicial Center biographical directory. Biographies: Wikipedia, text abridged, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Portraits: public-domain images via Wikimedia Commons.