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Supreme Court · Associate Justice

Abe Fortas

Democratic appointee: Appointed by Lyndon B. Johnson (D)

Served 1965–1969 · 4 terms

Confirmed by voice vote

Biography

Abraham Fortas was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1965 to 1969. Born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, Fortas graduated from Rhodes College and Yale Law School. He later became a law professor at Yale and then an advisor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Source: Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

Ideology over time

Fortas and the 9 justices who overlapped with Fortas, 1965–1968

−8−6−4−20+219651968More conservativeMore liberalHarlanStewartBlackWhiteBrennanFortasMarshallWarrenDouglas
  • Abe Fortas
  • 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 Fortas sits among all justices

Career average, every justice in the data set

−4−20+2+4−1.51−1.09

Fortas’s range across terms

Served alongside Fortas

9 justices

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

JusticeTogetherCareer avg
Earl Warren1965–1968career average −1.26 versus Fortas at −1.32Hugo Black1965–1968career average −1.76 versus Fortas at −1.32William Brennan1965–1968career average −1.78 versus Fortas at −1.32Thurgood Marshall1967–1968career average −2.82 versus Fortas at −1.32Potter Stewart1965–1968career average 0.40 versus Fortas at −1.32Byron White1965–1968career average 0.44 versus Fortas at −1.32Tom Clark1965–1966career average 0.47 versus Fortas at −1.32John Harlan1965–1968career average 1.62 versus Fortas at −1.32William Douglas1965–1968career average −4.70 versus Fortas at −1.32

How Fortas voted

Every argued case Fortas took part in, newest first, with how Fortas 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.

Loading cases…
    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.).

    Report a correction

    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.