View source for Wiley Rutledge

{{Short description|US Supreme Court justice from 1943 to 1949}}
{{Featured article}}
{{Use American English|date=February 2022}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=July 2024}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Wiley Rutledge
| image               = Wiley Rutledge portrait.jpg
| alt                 = Portrait of Rutledge seated, wearing his judicial robes
| caption             = Rutledge, {{circa|1943–1949}}
| office              = [[Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States]]
| term_start          = February 15, 1943
| term_end            = September 10, 1949
| nominator           = [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]]
| predecessor         = [[James F. Byrnes]]
| successor           = [[Sherman Minton]]
| office1             = Associate Justice of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia]]
| term_start1         = May 2, 1939
| term_end1           = February 14, 1943<!--Termination date per FJC Bio, reflects oath date at Supreme Court.-->
| nominator1          = Franklin D. Roosevelt
| predecessor1        = ''Seat established by {{nowrap|52 Stat. 584}}''
| successor1          = [[Thurman Arnold]]
| birth_name          = Wiley Blount Rutledge Jr.
| birth_date          = {{Birth date|1894|7|20}}
| birth_place         = [[Cloverport, Kentucky]], U.S.
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1949|9|10|1894|7|20}}
| death_place         = [[York, Maine]], U.S.
| death_cause         = 
| resting_place       = 
| resting_place_coordinates = 
| party               = [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]]
| education           = {{ubl|[[Maryville College]]|[[University of Wisconsin–Madison]] ([[B. A.|BA]])|[[Indiana University Maurer School of Law]]|[[University of Colorado Law School]] ([[LL.B.|LLB]])}}
| signature           = 
| signature_alt       = 
}}

'''Wiley Blount Rutledge Jr.''' (July 20, 1894 – September 10, 1949) was an American jurist who served as an [[associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States]] from 1943 to 1949. The ninth and final justice appointed by President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], he is best known for his impassioned defenses of [[civil liberties]]. Rutledge favored broad interpretations of the [[First Amendment]], the [[Due Process Clause]], and the [[Equal Protection Clause]], and he argued that the Bill of Rights [[Incorporation of the Bill of Rights|applied in its totality to the states]]. He participated in several noteworthy cases involving the intersection of individual freedoms and the government's wartime powers. Rutledge served on the Court until his death at the age of fifty-five. Legal scholars have generally thought highly of the justice, although the brevity of his tenure has minimized his impact on history.

Born in [[Cloverport, Kentucky]], Rutledge attended several colleges and universities, graduating with a [[Bachelor of Laws]] degree in 1922. He briefly practiced law in [[Boulder, Colorado]], before accepting a position on the faculty of the [[University of Colorado Law School]]. Rutledge also taught law at the [[Washington University School of Law]] in [[St. Louis]], Missouri, of which he became the [[Dean (education)|dean]]; he later served as dean of the [[University of Iowa College of Law]]. As an academic, he vocally opposed Supreme Court decisions striking down parts of the [[New Deal]] and argued in favor of President Roosevelt's unsuccessful [[Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937|attempt to expand the Court]]. Rutledge's support of Roosevelt's policies brought him to the President's attention: he was considered as a potential Supreme Court nominee and was appointed to the [[U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia]], where he developed a record as a supporter of individual liberties and the New Deal. When Justice [[James F. Byrnes]] resigned from the Supreme Court, Roosevelt nominated Rutledge to take his place. The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed Rutledge by [[voice vote]], and he took the oath of office on February 15, 1943.

Rutledge's jurisprudence placed a strong emphasis on the protection of civil liberties. In ''[[Everson v. Board of Education]]'' (1947), he authored an influential [[dissenting opinion]] in support of the [[Separation of church and state in the United States|separation of church and state]]. He sided with [[Jehovah's Witnesses]] seeking to invoke the First Amendment in cases such as ''[[West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette]]'' (1943) and ''[[Murdock v. Pennsylvania]]'' (1943); his majority opinion in ''[[Thomas v. Collins]]'' (1945) endorsed a broad interpretation of the Free Speech Clause. In a famed dissent in the wartime case of ''[[In re Yamashita]]'' (1946), Rutledge voted to void the [[war crime]]s conviction of the Japanese general [[Tomoyuki Yamashita]], condemning in ringing terms a trial that, in his view, violated the basic principles of justice and fairness enshrined in the Constitution. By contrast, he joined the majority in two cases&mdash;''[[Hirabayashi v. United States]]'' (1943) and ''[[Korematsu v. United States]]'' (1944)&mdash;that upheld the Roosevelt administration's decision to [[Internment of Japanese Americans|intern tens of thousands of Japanese Americans]] during World War II. In other cases, Rutledge fervently supported broad [[due process]] rights in criminal cases, and he opposed discrimination against women, racial minorities, and the poor.

Rutledge was among the most [[Liberalism in the United States|liberal]] justices ever to serve on the Supreme Court. He favored a flexible and pragmatic approach to the law that prioritized the rights of individuals. On the Court, his views aligned most often with those of Justice [[Frank Murphy]]. Rutledge died in 1949, having suffered a massive stroke, after six years' service on the Supreme Court. President [[Harry S. Truman]] appointed the considerably more conservative [[Sherman Minton]] to replace him. Although Rutledge frequently found himself in dissent during his lifetime, many of his views received greater acceptance during the era of the [[Warren Court]].

== Early life and education ==
Wiley Blount Rutledge Jr. was born just outside of [[Cloverport, Kentucky]], on July 20, 1894, to Mary Lou ({{Nee}} Wigginton) and Wiley Blount Rutledge.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Ferren|first=John M.|url=https://archive.org/details/saltofearthconsc00john|title=Salt of the Earth, Conscience of the Court: The Story of Justice Wiley Rutledge|publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]]|year=2004|isbn=978-0-8078-2866-3|location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina|author-link=John M. Ferren}}</ref>{{Rp|page=13}} Wiley Sr., a native of western Tennessee, was a [[Christian fundamentalism|fundamentalist]] Baptist clergyman who believed firmly in the [[Biblical inerrancy|literal inerrancy of the Bible]].<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Israel |first=Fred L. |title=The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions |publisher=[[Chelsea House]] |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-7910-1377-9 |editor-last=Friedman |editor-first=Leon |volume=4 |location=New York |pages=1312–1321 |chapter=Wiley Rutledge |editor2-last=Israel |editor2-first=Fred L. |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/justicesofunited0000unse/page/1312/mode/2up}}</ref>{{Rp|page=1313}} He attended seminary in [[Louisville, Kentucky]], and then moved with his wife to pastor a church in Cloverport.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1313}} After Wiley Jr.'s birth, his mother contracted [[tuberculosis]]; the family left Kentucky in search of a healthier climate.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=13–14}} They moved first to Texas and Louisiana and then to [[Asheville, North Carolina]], where the elder Rutledge took up a pastorate.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1313}} After his wife's death in 1903, Wiley Sr. relocated his family throughout Tennessee and Kentucky, where he held temporary pastorates before eventually accepting a permanent post in [[Maryville, Tennessee]].<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1314}}

In 1910, the sixteen-year-old Wiley Jr. enrolled at [[Maryville College]].<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1314}} He studied Latin and Greek, successfully maintaining high grades throughout.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=20}} One of his Greek instructors was Annabel Person, whom he later married.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Tresolini|first=Rocco J.|url=https://archive.org/details/justicesupremeco00tres|title=Justice and the Supreme Court|publisher=[[J. B. Lippincott & Co.|J. B. Lippincott Company]]|year=1963|location=Philadelphia|oclc=965239}}</ref>{{Rp|page=132}} At Maryville, Rutledge participated vigorously in debate; he argued in support of [[Woodrow Wilson]] and against the progressivism of [[Theodore Roosevelt]].<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=20–21; 24}} He also played [[American football|football]], developed a reputation as a practical jokester, and began a romantic relationship with Person, who was five years his senior.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=20, 25}}<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1314}} For reasons that are not altogether clear, Rutledge—who had planned to study law upon his graduation and whose lowest grades were in the sciences—left Maryville, enrolled at the [[University of Wisconsin–Madison]], and decided to study chemistry.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=27}} Lonely and struggling in his classwork, Rutledge had a difficult time in Wisconsin, and he later characterized it as being one of the "hardest" and most "painful" periods of his life.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=30–31}} He graduated in 1914 with an [[A. B.]] degree.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Forrester |first=Ray |author-link=William Ray Forrester |date=April 1943 |title=Mr. Justice Rutledge — A New Factor |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Ftulr17&div=33&id=&page= |journal=[[Tulane Law Review]] |volume=17 |issue=4 |pages=511–536 |access-date=June 17, 2022 |archive-date=October 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026032906/https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Ftulr17&div=33&id=&page= |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|page=515}}

Realizing that his talents did not lie in chemistry, Rutledge resumed his original plan to study law.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=31}} Since he was unable to afford the [[University of Wisconsin Law School]], he moved to [[Bloomington, Indiana]], where he taught high school and enrolled part-time at the [[Indiana University Maurer School of Law|Indiana University Law School]].<ref name=":43">{{Cite book|last1=Biskupic|first1=Joan|url=https://archive.org/details/guidetoussupreme00bisk|title=Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court|last2=Witt|first2=Elder|publisher=[[Congressional Quarterly]]|year=1997|isbn=978-1-56802-130-0|edition=3rd|volume=2|location=Washington, DC|author-link=Joan Biskupic}}</ref>{{Rp|page=938}} The difficulty of simultaneously working and studying put a serious strain on his health, and, by 1915, he had developed a life-threatening case of tuberculosis.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1314}} The ailing Rutledge removed himself to a [[sanatorium]] and gradually began to recover from his disease; while there, he married Person.<ref name=":7">{{Cite book |last=Hall |first=Timothy L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8AJ7__ph3rgC |title=Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary |publisher=[[Facts on File]] |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-8160-4194-7 |location=New York |pages=330–334 |access-date=January 13, 2022 |archive-date=March 18, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230318170804/https://books.google.com/books?id=8AJ7__ph3rgC |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|page=331}} Upon recovering, he moved with his wife to [[Albuquerque, New Mexico]], where he took a position teaching high school business classes.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1314}} In 1920, Rutledge enrolled at the [[University of Colorado Law School]] in [[Boulder, Colorado|Boulder]]; he continued teaching high school as he again pursued the study of law.<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|page=331}}<ref name=":11" />{{Rp|page=103}} One of his professors was [[Herbert S. Hadley]], the former governor of Missouri.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=46}} Rutledge later stated that he "owe[d] more professionally to Governor Hadley than to any other person"; Hadley's support for [[Roscoe Pound]]'s progressive theory of [[Jurisprudence#Sociological jurisprudence|sociological jurisprudence]] influenced Rutledge's view of the law.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=47}} Rutledge graduated with a [[Bachelor of Laws]] degree in 1922.<ref name=":43" />{{Rp|page=938}}

==Career==

Rutledge passed the [[Bar examination in the United States|bar examination]] in June 1922 and took a job with the law firm of Goss, Kimbrough, and Hutchison in Boulder.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=47–48}} In 1924, he accepted the position of associate professor of law at his alma mater, the University of Colorado.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal|last=Wirtz|first=W. Willard|author-link=W. Willard Wirtz|date=Summer 1950|title=Teacher of Men|url=https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3781&context=ilj|journal=[[Indiana Law Review]]|volume=25|issue=4|pages=444–454|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=January 10, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220110071159/https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3781&context=ilj|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|page=444}} He taught a wide variety of classes, and his colleagues commented that he was experiencing "very considerable success".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=51–52}} In 1926, Hadley—who had recently become chancellor of [[Washington University in St. Louis]]—offered Rutledge a full professorship at his university's law school; Rutledge accepted the offer and moved to [[St. Louis]] with his family that year.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=51–52; 57–59}} He spent nine years there, continuing to teach classes pertaining to many aspects of the law.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=59}} From 1930 to 1935, Rutledge served as [[Dean (education)#Professional schools|dean]] of the law school; he then spent four years as dean of the [[University of Iowa College of Law]].<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Wiecek |first=William M. |url=https://archive.org/details/birthofmoderncon0000wie2 |title=The Birth of the Modern Constitution: The United States Supreme Court, 1941–1953 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-521-84820-6 |location=Cambridge, UK}}</ref>{{Rp|page=111}}

During his time in academia, Rutledge did not function primarily as a scholar: for instance, he only published two articles in [[law review]]s.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=111}} Yet his students and colleagues thought highly of him as a teacher, and the legal scholar William Wiecek noted that he was recalled as "dedicated and demanding" by those whom he taught.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=111}}<ref name=":31">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FGoEj2tBGMkC |title=Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies |publisher=[[CQ Press]] |year=2013 |isbn=978-1-60871-832-0 |editor-last=Cushman |editor-first=Clare |location=Thousand Oaks, California |language=en |access-date=January 13, 2022 |archive-date=March 18, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230318170800/https://books.google.com/books?id=FGoEj2tBGMkC |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|page=375}} Rutledge frequently weighed in on questions of public importance, supporting academic freedom and free speech at Washington University and opposing the Supreme Court's [[Child labor laws in the United States|approach to child labor laws]].<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1315}} His tenure as dean overlapped with the [[New Deal]]-period clash between President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] and a Supreme Court whose decisions thwarted his agenda.<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|page=331}} Rutledge came down firmly on Roosevelt's side: he denounced the [[Constitutional challenges to the New Deal|Court's rulings striking down portions of the New Deal]] and voiced support for the President's unsuccessful [[Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937|"court-packing plan"]], which attempted to make the Court more amenable to Roosevelt's agenda by increasing the number of justices.<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|page=331}}<ref name=":31" />{{Rp|page=375}} In Rutledge's view, the justices of his era had "imposed their own political philosophy" rather than the law in their decisions; as such, he felt that expanding the Court was a regrettable but necessary way for Congress to bring it back into line.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=125–127}} Roosevelt's proposal was extremely unpopular in the Midwest, and Rutledge's support for it was loudly denounced: his position even led some members of the [[Iowa General Assembly|Iowa legislature]] to threaten to freeze faculty salaries.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1316}} Still, Roosevelt noticed Rutledge's outspoken support for him, and it garnered the dean prominence on the national stage.<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|page=331}} In the words of Rutledge himself, "[t]he Court bill gave me my chance".<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1316}}

== Court of Appeals (1939–1943) ==
[[File:Washington, D.C., May 23. Judge Wiley Rutledge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia was a White House caller today LCCN2016875696.jpg|alt=Rutledge stands outside the White House|thumb|left|Rutledge in 1939, while on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia]]
Having attracted the attention of Roosevelt, Rutledge was seriously considered as a potential Supreme Court nominee when a vacancy arose in 1939.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=112}} Although the President ultimately appointed [[Felix Frankfurter]] to that seat, he decided that it would be politically advantageous to appoint someone from west of the Mississippi—such as Rutledge—to fill the next opening.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=112}} Roosevelt selected [[William O. Douglas]], who had lived in the states of Minnesota and Washington, instead of Rutledge when that vacancy arose, but he simultaneously offered Rutledge a seat on the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia]]—one of the nation's most influential appellate courts—which he accepted.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=151}}<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|pages=1316–1317}} Rutledge appeared before a Senate subcommittee; its members promptly endorsed the nomination.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=176}} The full Senate speedily confirmed him by [[voice vote]] on April 4, 1939, and he took the oath of office on May 2.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=176–177}}

At the time, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard a unique variety of matters: appeals from the federal district court in Washington, petitions to review the decisions of administrative agencies, and cases (similar to those decided by state supreme courts) arising from the District's local court system.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=173–174}} As a judge of that court, therefore, Rutledge had the opportunity to write opinions on a wide variety of topics.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=174}} In Wiecek's words, his 118 opinions "reflected his sympathetic views toward organized labor, the New Deal, and noneconomic individual rights".<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=112}} In ''[[Busey v. District of Columbia]]'',{{Efn|129 [[F.2d]] [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/129/24/1483387/ 24] (D.C. Cir. 1942)}} for instance, he dissented when the majority upheld several [[Jehovah's Witnesses]]' convictions for distributing religious literature without securing a license and paying a tax.<ref name=":19" />{{Rp|page=|pages=359–360}} Writing that "[t]axed speech is not free speech", Rutledge argued that the government could not charge those who wished to communicate on the streets.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Morris |first=Jeffrey B. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B-5EAQAAIAAJ |title=Calmly to Poise the Scales of Justice: A History of the Courts of the District of Columbia Circuit |publisher=[[Carolina Academic Press]] |year=2001 |isbn=0-89089-645-3 |location=Durham, North Carolina}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=|page=94}} His opinion for the court in ''Wood v. United States''{{Efn|128 [[F.2d]] [https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/128/265/1545293/ 265] (D.C. Cir. 1942)}} reversed a conviction for robbery that had been secured after the defendant pleaded guilty at a preliminary hearing without having been informed of his [[Right to silence|right against self-incrimination]].<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1317}} Rutledge wrote that the preliminary hearing was not supposed to be "a trap for luring the unwary into confession or admission which is fatal or prejudicial"; he held that a plea was not [[Plea#"Voluntary and intelligent"|voluntary]] if the defendant was not aware of his constitutional rights.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=191}} Rutledge's jurisprudence emphasized the spirit of the law over the letter of the law; he rejected the use of technicalities to penalize individuals or to circumvent a law's underlying purpose.<ref name=":17" />{{Rp|pages=169–170}} During his time on the Court of Appeals, he never rendered a single decision adverse to organized labor, and his rulings tended to be favorable toward administrative agencies and the New Deal more generally.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=1317–1318}}

== Supreme Court nomination ==
{{see main| Wiley Rutledge Supreme Court nomination}}
In October 1942, Justice [[James F. Byrnes]] resigned from the Supreme Court, creating the ninth and final vacancy of Roosevelt's presidency.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Abraham |first=Henry J. |author-link=Henry J. Abraham |date=February 1983 |title=A Bench Happily Filled: Some Historical Reflections on the Supreme Court Appointment Process |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fjudica66&div=53&id=&page= |journal=[[American Judicature Society|Judicature]] |volume=66 |pages=282–295 |access-date=January 13, 2022 |archive-date=December 14, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211214010432/https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fjudica66&div=53&id=&page= |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|pages=292, 294}} As a result of Roosevelt's many previous appointments to the Court, there was "no obvious successor, no obvious political debt to be paid", according to the scholar [[Henry J. Abraham]].<ref name=":32">{{Cite book |last=Abraham |first=Henry J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NWJRemDnx2kC |title=Justices, Presidents, and Senators: A History of the U.S. Supreme Court Appointments from Washington to Bush II |publisher=[[Rowman & Littlefield]] |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-7425-5895-3 |location=Lanham, Maryland |language=en |author-link=Henry J. Abraham |access-date=January 13, 2022 |archive-date=March 18, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230318170801/https://books.google.com/books?id=NWJRemDnx2kC |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|page=186}} Some prominent figures, including Justices Felix Frankfurter and [[Harlan F. Stone]], encouraged Roosevelt to appoint the distinguished jurist [[Learned Hand]]. However, the President was uncomfortable appointing the seventy-one-year-old Hand due to his age, as Roosevelt feared the appearance of hypocrisy due to the fact that he had cited the advanced age of Supreme Court justices to justify his plan to expand the Court.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=186, 216–217}} Attorney General [[Francis Biddle]], who had disclaimed any interest in serving on the court himself, was asked by Roosevelt to search for a suitable nominee.<ref name=":4" />{{Rp|page=292}} A number of candidates were considered, including federal judge [[John J. Parker]], Solicitor General [[Charles Fahy]], U.S. Senator [[Alben W. Barkley]], and [[Dean Acheson]].<ref name=":32" />{{Rp|page=186}} But the journalist [[Drew Pearson (journalist)|Drew Pearson]] soon named another possibility, whom he identified as "the candidate of Chief Justice Stone" in his columns and radio broadcasts: Wiley Rutledge.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=209}}
[[File:Wiley Rutledge nomination.jpg|thumb|upright=1.35|alt=Paper on which is written "To the Senate of the United States: I nominate Wiley Blount Rutledge of Iowa to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, vice Honorable James F. Byrnes, resigned. Franklin D. Roosevelt."|Rutledge's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, signed by Roosevelt]]
Rutledge had no desire to be nominated to the Supreme Court, but his friends nonetheless wrote to Roosevelt and Biddle on his behalf.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=208–209}} He wrote to Biddle disclaiming all interest in the position, and he admonished his friends with the words: "For God's sake, don't do anything about stirring up the matter! I am uncomfortable enough as it is."<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=209–210}} Still, Rutledge's supporters, most notably the well-regarded journalist [[Irving Brant]], continued to lobby the White House to nominate him, and he stated in private that he would not decline the nomination if Roosevelt offered it to him.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=209–211}}<ref name=":32" />{{Rp|page=186}} Biddle directed his assistant [[Herbert Wechsler]] to review Rutledge's record; Wechsler's report convinced Biddle that Rutledge's judicial opinions were "a bit pedestrian" but nonetheless "sound".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=213}} Biddle, joined by Roosevelt loyalists such as Douglas, Senator [[George W. Norris]], and Justice [[Frank Murphy]], thus recommended to the President that Rutledge be appointed.<ref name=":4" />{{Rp|page=292}} After meeting with Rutledge at the White House and being convinced by Biddle that the judge's judicial philosophy was fully aligned with his own, Roosevelt agreed.<ref name=":32" />{{Rp|page=186}} According to the scholar Fred L. Israel, Roosevelt found Rutledge to be "a liberal New Dealer who combined the President's respect for the academic community with four years of service on a leading federal appellate court".<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1318}} Additionally, the fact that Rutledge was a Westerner weighed in his favor.<ref name=":4" />{{Rp|page=292}} The President told his nominee: "Wiley, we had a number of candidates for the Court who were highly qualified, but they didn't have geography—you have that".<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1318}}

Roosevelt formally nominated Rutledge, who was then forty-eight years old, to the Supreme Court on January 11, 1943.<ref name=":31" />{{Rp|page=375}} The [[United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary|Senate Judiciary Committee]] voted on February 1 to approve Rutledge's nomination; the vote was 11–0, with four abstentions.<ref>{{Cite news|date=February 1, 1943|title=Senate Committee Favors Rutledge|page=2|work=[[Fort Worth Star-Telegram]]|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90788472/rutledge-judiciary-committee/|access-date=December 18, 2021|archive-date=December 19, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211219001402/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/90788472/rutledge-judiciary-committee/|url-status=live}}</ref> Those four senators—North Dakota's [[William Langer]], West Virginia's [[Chapman Revercomb]], Montana's [[Burton K. Wheeler]], and Michigan's [[Homer S. Ferguson]]—abstained due to uneasiness about Rutledge's support for Roosevelt's court-expansion plan.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=220}} Ferguson later spoke with Rutledge and indicated that his concerns had been resolved, but Wheeler, who had strongly opposed Roosevelt's efforts to enlarge the Court, said that he would vote against the nomination when it came before the full Senate.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=220}} The only senator to speak on the Senate floor in opposition to Rutledge was Langer, who characterized Rutledge as "a man who, so far as I can ascertain, never practiced law inside a courtroom or, so far as I know, seldom even visited one until he came to take a seat on the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia" and commented that "[t]he Court is not without a professor or two already."<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=220–221}} The Senate overwhelmingly<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|page=332}} confirmed Rutledge by a voice vote on February 8, and he took the oath of office on February 15.<ref name=":43" />{{Rp|page=938}}

== Supreme Court (1943–1949) ==
[[File:Berryman Supreme Court cartoon (6 Oct. 1946).png|thumb|upright=1.35|alt=Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson admonishes the justices: "No talking out of turn! No scuffling on the bench! No throwing spitballs or inkwells!"|This 1946 political cartoon by [[Clifford K. Berryman]] mocks the squabbling that abounded on the Supreme Court during Rutledge's tenure.]]
Rutledge served as an [[Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States|associate justice of the Supreme Court]] from 1943 until his death in 1949.<ref name=":43" />{{Rp|page=938}} He penned a total of sixty-five [[majority opinion]]s, forty-five [[Concurring opinion|concurrences]], and sixty-one [[Dissenting opinion|dissents]].<ref name=":17" />{{Rp|page=187}} The deeply fractured Court to which he was appointed consisted of a conservative bloc—Justices Frankfurter, [[Robert H. Jackson]], [[Stanley Forman Reed]], and [[Owen Roberts]]—and a liberal bloc consisting of Justices [[Hugo Black]], Murphy, Douglas, Rutledge, and sometimes Stone.<ref name=":11" />{{Rp|page=110}} On a Court plagued by internecine squabbles, Rutledge was, according to the legal historian [[Lucas A. Powe Jr.]], "the sole member both personally liked and intellectually respected by every other member".<ref name=":18">{{Cite journal|last=Powe Jr.|first=L. A.|author-link=Lucas A. Powe Jr.|date=November 2004|title=(Re)introducing Wiley Rutledge|url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fjspcth29&div=30&id=&page=|journal=[[Journal of Supreme Court History]]|volume=29|issue=3|pages=337–345|doi=10.1111/j.1059-4329.2004.00089.x|s2cid=144260010|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=October 26, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026032908/https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fjspcth29&div=30&id=&page=|url-status=live|url-access=subscription}}</ref>{{Rp|page=337}} He found it challenging to write opinions, and his writing style has been criticized as unnecessarily prolix and difficult to read.<ref name=":17" />{{Rp|page=185}}<ref name=":18" />{{Rp|page=339}} Rutledge frequently and strenuously dissented—the scholar Alfred O. Canon wrote that he was "in many respects{{nbsp}}... the chief dissenter of the Roosevelt Court".<ref name=":17" />{{Rp|pages=188–189}}

Rutledge was one of the most liberal justices in the history of the Court.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Sickels |first=Robert J. |url=https://archive.org/details/johnpaulstevenst00sick |title=John Paul Stevens and the Constitution: The Search for Balance |publisher=[[Pennsylvania State University Press]] |year=1988 |isbn=0-271-00636-6 |location=University Park, Pennsylvania}}</ref>{{Rp|page=1}} His approach to the law strongly emphasized the preservation of civil liberties,<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1318}} motivated by a fervent belief that the freedoms of individuals should be protected.<ref name=":17">{{Cite journal|last=Canon|first=Alfred O.|date=February 1957|title=Mr. Justice Rutledge and the Roosevelt Court|url=https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4205&context=vlr|journal=[[Vanderbilt Law Review]]|volume=10|issue=2|pages=167–192|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=August 13, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210813171939/https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4205&context=vlr|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|page=178}} Rutledge voted more often than any of his colleagues in favor of individuals who brought suit against the government,<ref name=":32" />{{Rp|page=186}} and he forcefully advocated for equal protection, access to the courts, due process, and the rights protected by the First Amendment.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=419}}According to the legal scholar Lester E. Mosher, Rutledge "may be classed as a 'natural law [[Legal realism|realist]]' who combined the humanitarianism of [[Thomas Jefferson]] with the pragmatism of [[John Dewey]]—he employed the tenets of pragmatism as a juristic tool or technique in applying '[[natural law]]' concepts".<ref name=":9">{{Cite journal|last=Mosher|first=Lester E.|date=October 1949|title=Mr. Justice Rutledge's Philosophy of Civil Rights|url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fnylr24&div=42&id=&page=|journal=New York University Law Quarterly Review|volume=24|issue=4|pages=661–706|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=October 25, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211025190246/https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fnylr24&div=42&id=&page=|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|page=698}} His views particularly overlapped with those of Murphy, with whom he agreed in nearly seventy-five percent of the Court's non-unanimous cases.<ref name=":17" />{{Rp|page=186}} The Supreme Court at large did not often embrace Rutledge's views during his lifetime, but during the era of the [[Warren Court]] they gained considerable acceptance.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=419}}

=== First Amendment ===
Rutledge's appointment had an immediate effect on a Court that was decidedly split on questions involving the freedoms protected by the [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|First Amendment]].<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=260–261}} For instance, in ''[[Jones v. City of Opelika (1942)|Jones v. City of Opelika]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|316|584|1942}}|group=|name=}} a 1942 case decided before Rutledge's ascension to the Court, a 5–4 majority had upheld the convictions of Jehovah's Witnesses for selling religious literature without obtaining a license and paying a tax.<ref name=":19">{{Cite journal |last=Harper |first=Fowler V. |date=1964 |title=Justice Rutledge and the Religious Clauses of the First Amendment |url=https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4560&context=fss_papers |journal=[[Revista Jurídica de la Universidad de Puerto Rico]] |volume=33 |pages=335–390 |access-date=January 13, 2022 |archive-date=October 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026032905/https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4560&context=fss_papers |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|page=340}} Rutledge's arrival the subsequent year gave that case's erstwhile dissenters a majority; in ''[[Murdock v. Pennsylvania]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|319|105|1943}}|name=}} they overruled ''Jones'' and struck down the tax as unconstitutional.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=130}} Rutledge also joined the majority in another precedent-altering case involving Jehovah's Witnesses and the First Amendment: ''[[West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette]]''.{{Efn|{{ussc|319|624|1943}}|group=|name=}}<ref name=":23">{{Cite book |last=Currie |first=David P. |url=https://archive.org/details/constitutioninsu0000curr_o0i2 |title=The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The Second Century, 1888–1986 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |year=1990 |isbn=0-226-13111-4 |location=Chicago |author-link=David P. Currie}}</ref>{{Rp|page=318}} In that landmark decision, the Court reversed its previous holding in ''[[Minersville School District v. Gobitis]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|310|586|1940}}|group=|name=}} ruling instead that the First Amendment forbade public schools from requiring students to recite the [[Pledge of Allegiance]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Bloom Jr.|first=Lackland H.|date=1990|title=''Barnette'' and ''Johnson'': A Tale of Two Opinions|url=https://scholar.smu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1668&context=law_faculty|journal=[[Iowa Law Review]]|volume=75|issue=2|pages=417–432|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=December 23, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211223201615/https://scholar.smu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1668&context=law_faculty|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=419–421}} Writing for a 6–3 majority that included Rutledge, Justice Jackson wrote that: "[i]f there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein".<ref name=":512">{{Cite book|last1=Finkelman|first1=Paul|url=https://archive.org/details/landmarkdecision0000fink|title=Landmark Decisions of the United States Supreme Court|last2=Urofsky|first2=Melvin I.|publisher=[[CQ Press]]|year=2003|isbn=978-1-56802-720-3|location=Washington, DC|author-link=Paul Finkelman|author-link2=Melvin I. Urofsky}}</ref>{{Rp|page=213}} According to the jurist and scholar [[John M. Ferren]], Rutledge, by his vote in ''Barnette'', "established himself early as a concerned protector of religious freedom".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=261}}

Among Rutledge's most influential free-speech opinions was in the 1945 case of ''[[Thomas v. Collins]]''.{{Efn|{{ussc|323|516|1945}}|group=|name=}}<ref name=":9" />{{Rp|page=664}} Writing for a 5–4 majority, he ruled unconstitutional a Texas statute that required [[union organizer]]s to register and obtain a license before they could solicit individuals to join labor unions.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=218}} The case arose when [[R. J. Thomas]], an official of the [[Congress of Industrial Organizations]], gave a pro-union address in Texas without having registered; he argued that the law was an unconstitutional [[prior restraint]] on his First Amendment rights.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=181}} Rutledge rejected Texas's arguments that the law was subject only to [[Rational basis review|rational-basis review]] because labor organizing was akin to the sort of ordinary business activity that states could freely regulate.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=269}} Writing that "the indispensable democratic freedoms secured by the First Amendment" had a "preferred place" that could be abridged only in light of a "clear and present danger", he held that the law imposed an unjustified burden on Thomas's constitutional rights.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=269}} In dissent, Justice Roberts argued that it was not constitutionally problematic to impose a neutral licensing requirement on organizers of public meetings.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=218}} According to Ferren, Rutledge's "celebrated and controversial" opinion in ''Thomas'' exemplifies both the Court's pervasive 5–4 division on First Amendment issues throughout the 1940s and Rutledge's "nearly absolutist" interpretation of the Free Speech Clause.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=269}}

In the case of ''[[Everson v. Board of Education]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|330|1|1947}}|group=|name=}} Rutledge rendered a noteworthy dissent in defense of the [[separation of church and state]].<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=264, 268}} ''Everson'' was among the first decisions to interpret the [[Establishment Clause]] of the First Amendment, which forbids the enactment of laws "respecting an establishment of religion".<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal|last=Mann|first=Howard|date=Summer 1950|title=Mr. Justice Rutledge and Civil Liberties|url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Filr35&div=44&id=&page=|journal=[[Iowa Law Review]]|volume=35|issue=4|pages=663–699|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=October 25, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211025190245/https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Filr35&div=44&id=&page=|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|page=672}} Writing for the majority, Justice Black concluded that the Fourteenth Amendment [[Incorporation of the Bill of Rights|incorporated]] the Establishment Clause, meaning that it applied to the states as well as to the federal government.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|pages=226–227}} Quoting Thomas Jefferson, he argued that "the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between Church and State{{' "}}.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|pages=266–267}} But despite what Wiecek called a "fusillade of sweeping [[Obiter dictum|dicta]]", Black nonetheless held for a 5–4 majority that the specific law at issue—a New Jersey statute that permitted parents to be reimbursed for the costs of sending their children to private religious schools by bus—did not violate the Establishment Clause.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|pages=262, 267}} In dissent, Rutledge favored an even stricter understanding of the Establishment Clause than Black, maintaining that its purpose "was to create a complete and permanent separation of the spheres of religious activity and civil authority by comprehensively forbidding every form of public aid or support for religion".<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=268}} On that basis, he argued that the New Jersey law was unconstitutional because it provided indirect financial support for religious education.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=264–265}} Although Rutledge's position in ''Everson'' was not vindicated by the Court's later Establishment Clause jurisprudence, Ferren argued that his dissent "remains as powerful a statement as any Supreme Court justice has written" in support of church–state separation.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=268}}

In other cases, Rutledge evinced a near-uniform tendency to embrace defenses rooted in the First Amendment: in ''[[Terminiello v. City of Chicago]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|337|1|1949}}|group=|name=}} he sided with a priest whose rhetorical attacks on Jews and the Roosevelt administration had provoked a riot; in ''[[United Public Workers v. Mitchell]]''{{Efn|{{ussc|330|75|1947}}|group=|name=}} and ''[[Oklahoma v. United States Civil Service Commission]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|330|127|1947}}|group=|name=}} he dissented when the Court upheld the [[Hatch Act of 1939|Hatch Act]]'s restrictions on civil servants' political activity; in ''[[Marsh v. Alabama]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|326|501|1946}}|group=|name=}} he joined the majority in holding a [[company town]]'s restrictions on the distribution of religious literature unconstitutional.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=268–269; 480–481}}<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=236}} In only a single case—''[[Prince v. Massachusetts]]''{{Efn|{{ussc|321|158|1944}}|group=|name=}}—did he vote to reject an attempt to invoke the First Amendment.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=268}} ''Prince'' involved a Jehovah's Witness who had been convicted of violating a Massachusetts child labor law by bringing her nine-year-old niece to distribute religious literature with her.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=215}} Writing for a 5–4 majority, Rutledge held that Massachusetts's interest in protecting children's welfare outweighed the child's First Amendment rights;<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=215}} he argued that "parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow [that] they are free{{nbsp}}... to make martyrs of their children."<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=246}} His usual ally Murphy disagreed, arguing in dissent that the state had not demonstrated "the existence of any grave or immediate danger to any interest which it may lawfully protect".<ref name=":9" />{{Rp|page=669}} Rutledge's decision to reject the First Amendment argument presented in ''Prince'' may have stemmed more from his longstanding opposition to child labor than from his views on religious freedom.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=263, 268}}

=== Criminal procedure ===
[[File:John Paul Stevens, SCOTUS photo portrait.jpg|alt=John Paul Stevens, seated|thumb|[[John Paul Stevens]], one of Rutledge's [[law clerk]]s, later served on the Supreme Court in his own right.]]
In 80 percent of the criminal cases heard by the Supreme Court during his tenure, Rutledge voted in favor of the defendant—substantially more often than the Court as a whole, which did so in only 52 percent of criminal cases.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=350}} He supported an expansive definition of due process and construed ambiguous statutes in favor of defendants, particularly in cases involving [[capital punishment]].<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=350}} In ''[[Louisiana ex rel. Francis v. Resweber]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|329|459|1947}}|group=|name=}} Rutledge dissented from the Court's 5–4 holding that Louisiana could again endeavor to execute a prisoner after the [[electric chair]] malfunctioned during the previous attempt.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=226}} He joined the opinion of Justice [[Harold H. Burton]], who maintained that "death by installments" was a form of cruel and unusual punishment that violated the Due Process Clause.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=360}} In the case of ''[[In re Oliver]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|333|257|1948}}|group=|name=}} Rutledge agreed with the majority that a conviction for [[contempt of court]] was unlawful because a single judge, sitting as a one-man grand jury, had held proceedings in secret and given the defendant no opportunity to defend himself.<ref name=":5">{{Cite journal|last=Rockwell|first=Landon G.|date=1949|title=Justice Rutledge on Civil Liberties|url=https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4851&context=ylj|journal=[[Yale Law Journal]]|volume=59|issue=1|pages=27–59|doi=10.2307/793134|jstor=793134|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=April 28, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190428071308/https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4851&context=ylj|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|page=40}} Concurring separately, he argued for a broader definition of due process, decrying the Court's willingness to permit "selective departure[s]" from the "scheme of ordered personal liberty established by the Bill of Rights" in other cases.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=365}} Rutledge's dissent in ''[[Ahrens v. Clark]]''{{Efn|{{ussc|335|188|1948}}|group=|name=}} demonstrated what Ferren characterized as his "continued impatience{{nbsp}}... with procedural rules barring access to the federal courts".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=372–373}} The Court in ''Ahrens'' ruled 6–3 that German nationals seeking writs of [[habeas corpus]] to stop their deportations could not lawfully sue in federal court in the District of Columbia.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=373}} Aided by his law clerk [[John Paul Stevens]],<ref name=":12">{{Cite journal|last=Thai|first=Joseph T.|date=May 2006|title=The Law Clerk Who Wrote ''Rasul v. Bush'': John Paul Stevens's Influence from World War II to the War on Terror|url=https://www.virginialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/501.pdf|journal=[[Virginia Law Review]]|volume=92|issue=3|pages=501–532|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=December 31, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211231072129/https://www.virginialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/501.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|page=507}} Rutledge dissented, concluding that the court in the District of Columbia had [[jurisdiction]] because the person having custody over the prisoners—the [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]]—was located there.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=373}} He argued against what he viewed as "a jurisdictional limitation so destructive of the writ's availability and adaptability to all the varying conditions and devices by which liberty may be unlawfully restrained".<ref name=":12"/>{{Rp|page=512}} Stevens later served on the Supreme Court himself; in his majority opinion in ''[[Rasul v. Bush]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|542|466|2004}}|group=|name=}} he cited Rutledge's ''Ahrens'' dissent to conclude that federal courts had jurisdiction over suits brought by detainees at [[Guantanamo Bay detention camp|Guantanamo Bay]].<ref name=":12"/>{{Rp|pages=501–502}}

Rutledge maintained that the provisions of the Bill of Rights protected all criminal defendants, regardless of whether they were being tried in state or federal court.<ref name=":20">{{Cite book|last=Barnes|first=Catherine A.|url=https://archive.org/details/menofsupremecour0000barn/|title=Men of the Supreme Court: Profiles of the Justices|publisher=[[Facts on File]]|year=1978|isbn=0-87196-459-7|location=New York}}</ref>{{Rp|page=131}} He dissented in ''[[Adamson v. California]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|332|46|1947}}|group=|name=}} in which the Court, by a vote of 5–4, held that the Fifth Amendment's protection against forced [[self-incrimination]] did not apply to the states.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=229}} Joining a dissent written by Murphy, he agreed with Justice Black's position that the Due Process Clause [[Incorporation of the Bill of Rights#Selective versus total incorporation|incorporated the entirety of the Bill of Rights]], but he went further than Black to suggest that it also conferred additional due process protections not found elsewhere in the Constitution.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=363–364}} In another incorporation dispute, ''[[Wolf v. Colorado]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|338|25|1949}}|group=|name=}} Rutledge dissented when the Court ruled 6–3 that the [[exclusionary rule]]—the prohibition against using illegally seized evidence in court—did not apply to the states.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=237}} He joined a dissent by Murphy and penned a separate opinion of his own, in which he argued that, without the exclusionary rule, the Fourth Amendment prohibition of unlawful searches and seizures "was a dead letter".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=366–367}} Rutledge's dissent was eventually vindicated: in its 1961 decision in ''[[Mapp v. Ohio]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|367|643|1961}}|group=|name=}} the Court expressly overruled ''Wolf''.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=237}}<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Harper|first=Fowler V.|date=Fall 1963|title=Mr. Justice Rutledge and the Fourth Amendment|url=https://repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3254&context=umlr|journal=[[University of Miami Law Review]]|volume=18|issue=1|pages=48–67|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=October 26, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026032905/https://repository.law.miami.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3254&context=umlr|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|page=55}}

=== Wartime cases ===

==== ''In re Yamashita'' ====
[[File:Japanese War Crimes Trials. Manila - NARA - 292609.tif|alt=Dozens are seated in a courtroom; a witness is testifying|thumb|Testimony is heard at the war crimes trial of Tomoyuki Yamashita in Manila on October 29, 1945. In Rutledge's view, Yamashita's conviction was the result of egregious violations of the Constitution.]]
In the 1946 case of ''[[In re Yamashita]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|327|1|1946}}|group=|name=}} Rutledge rendered an opinion that was later characterized by Ferren as "one of the Court's truly great, and influential, dissents".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=305}} The case involved the Japanese general [[Tomoyuki Yamashita]], who commanded soldiers of the [[Imperial Japanese Army]] in the Philippines during [[World War II]].<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=222}} At the end of the war, troops under Yamashita's command killed tens of thousands of Filipinos, many of whom were civilians.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=328}} On the basis that he was [[Command responsibility|responsible for the actions of his troops]], Yamashita was charged with [[war crimes]] and tried before a [[Military tribunals in the United States|military commission]].<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=222}} At trial, the prosecution could not demonstrate either that Yamashita was aware of the atrocities committed by his troops or that he had any control over their actions; witnesses testified that they were responsible for the killings and that Yamashita had no knowledge of them.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=222}} The commission, which consisted of five American generals, nonetheless found him guilty and sentenced him to death by hanging.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=328}} Yamashita petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the conviction was unlawful due to a bevy of procedural irregularities, including the admission of [[hearsay]] and fabricated evidence, restrictions on the defense's ability to [[Cross-examination|cross-examine]] witnesses, a lack of time for the defense to prepare its case, and a dearth of proof that Yamashita (as opposed to his troops) was guilty.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|pages=328–329}} Although the justices desired to stay out of questions of military justice, Rutledge and Murphy, who were gravely worried by what they viewed as serious procedural problems, convinced their colleagues to grant review and hear arguments in the case.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=222}}

On February 4, 1946, the Court ruled by a 6–2 vote against Yamashita, upholding the result of the trial.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=222}} Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Stone stated that the Court could consider only whether the military commission was validly formed, not whether Yamashita was innocent or guilty.<ref name=":6">{{Cite journal|last=Tresolini|first=Rocco J.|date=1962|title=Justice Rutledge and the Yamashita Case|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41884987|journal=[[International Social Science Review|Social Science]]|volume=37|issue=3|pages=150–161|issn=0037-7848|jstor=41884987|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=December 21, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211221004715/https://www.jstor.org/stable/41884987|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|page=155}} Since the United States had not yet signed a peace treaty with Japan, he maintained that the [[Uniform Code of Military Justice#History|Articles of War]] permitted military trials to be conducted without complying with the Constitution's due process requirements.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=222}} Arguing that military tribunals "are not courts whose rulings and judgments are made subject to review by this Court", he declined to address the other issues presented by the case.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=330}} The two dissenters—Murphy and Rutledge—each filed separate opinions; according to Yamashita's lawyer, they read them "in tones so bitter and in language so sharp that it was readily apparent to all listeners that even more acrimonious expression must have marked the debate behind the scenes".<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1319}} In a dissent that scholars have characterized as "eloquent", "moving", and "magisterial", Rutledge decried the trial as an egregious violation of the ideals of justice and fairness protected by the Constitution.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=330}}<ref name=":31" />{{Rp|page=376}} He denounced the majority opinion as an abdication of the Court's responsibility to apply the [[rule of law]] to all, even to the military.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=330}} Rutledge wrote:<ref>{{Ussc|volume=327|page=1|year=1946|name=In re Yamashita|dissent=Rutledge, J.|pin=41–42}}</ref>

{{blockquote|More is at stake than General Yamashita's fate. There could be no possible sympathy for him if he is guilty of the atrocities for which his death is sought. But there can be and should be justice administered according to the law{{nbsp}}... It is not too early, it is never too early, for the nation steadfastly to follow its great constitutional traditions, none older or more universally protective against unbridled power than due process of law in the trial and punishment of men, that is, of all men, whether citizens, aliens, alien enemies or enemy belligerents. It can become too late.}}

Rutledge wrote privately that he felt the case would "outrank ''[[Dred Scott v. Sandford|Dred Scott]]'' in the annals of the Court".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fisher |first=Louis |date=2006 |title=Military Commissions: Problems of Authority and Practice |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fbuilj24&div=6&id=&page= |journal=[[Boston University International Law Journal]] |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=15–53 |access-date=June 17, 2022 |archive-date=March 18, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230318170815/https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fbuilj24&div=6&id=&page= |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|page=45}} In his dissent, he rejected the majority's holding that the Fifth Amendment was inapplicable, writing that: "[n]ot heretofore has it been held that any human being is beyond its universally protecting spread in the guaranty of a fair trial in the most fundamental sense. That door is dangerous to open. I will have no part in opening it. For once it is ajar, even for enemy belligerents, it can be pushed back wider for others, perhaps ultimately for all."<ref name=":5" />{{Rp|page=43}} Rebutting Stone's contentions point by point, Rutledge concluded that the charges against Yamashita were defective, that the evidence against him was inadequate and unlawfully admitted, and that the trial had violated the Articles of War, the [[Geneva Convention on Prisoners of War (1929)|1929 Geneva Convention]], and the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause.<ref name=":8">{{Cite book|last=Urofsky|first=Melvin I.|url=https://archive.org/details/dissentsupremeco0000urof|title=Dissent and the Supreme Court: Its Role in the Court's History and the Nation's Constitutional Dialogue|publisher=[[Pantheon Books]]|year=2015|isbn=978-0-307-37940-5|location=New York|author-link=Melvin I. Urofsky}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=265–267}} In closing, he quoted the words of [[Thomas Paine]]: "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."<ref name=":23" />{{Rp|page=283}} Although Rutledge's dissent did not prevent Yamashita from being hanged, the legal historian [[Melvin I. Urofsky]] has written that its "influence, however, cannot be gainsaid {{nbsp}}... The Court has not been involved with any war crimes trials in several decades, but aside from the jurisdictional issue it is clear that the ideas expressed by Wiley Rutledge—in terms of both due process and command accountability—have triumphed."<ref name=":8" />{{Rp|pages=268, 274}}

==== Japanese internment ====
{{See also|Internment of Japanese Americans}}
[[File:Japanese internment detainees.jpg|alt=Refer to caption|thumb|Japanese Americans standing in front of posted internment orders. Rutledge twice voted to uphold the internment program.]]
In an act characterized by Urofsky as "the worst violation of civil liberties in American history", the Roosevelt administration ordered in 1942 that approximately 110,000 men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry—including about 70,000 native-born American citizens—be detained on the basis that they posed a threat to the war effort.<ref name=":54">{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/publicdebateover0000unse|title=The Public Debate over Controversial Supreme Court Decisions|publisher=CQ Press|year=2006|isbn=978-1-56802-937-5|editor-last=Urofsky|editor-first=Melvin I.|editor-link=Melvin I. Urofsky|location=Washington, DC}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=161–163}} The Supreme Court, with the agreement of Rutledge, conferred its imprimatur on this decision in the cases of ''[[Hirabayashi v. United States]]''{{Efn|{{ussc|320|81|1943}}|group=|name=}} and ''[[Korematsu v. United States]]''.{{Efn|{{ussc|323|214|1944}}|group=|name=}}<ref name=":8" />{{Rp|pages=161, 163}} The first of these cases arose when [[Gordon Hirabayashi]], a college student born in the United States, was arrested, convicted, and jailed for refusing to comply with the order to report for relocation.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=214}} Before the Supreme Court, he argued that the order unlawfully discriminated against Japanese Americans on the basis of race.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=242}} The Court unanimously rejected his plea: in an opinion by Chief Justice Stone, it refused to question the military's assertion that the relocation program was critical to national security.<ref name=":54" />{{Rp|page=163}} Rutledge wrote privately that he had experienced "more anguish over this case" than almost any other, but he eventually voted to sustain Hirabayashi's conviction.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=245}} In a brief concurrence, he disagreed with Stone's argument that courts had no authority whatsoever to review wartime actions of the military but joined the remainder of the majority opinion.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=244–245}}

When the ''Korematsu'' case arrived at the Court the subsequent year, it had become clear to many that the internment program was unjustifiable: not a single Japanese American had been charged with treason or espionage, and the American military had largely neutralized the threat that Japan posed.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=217}} Yet by a 6–3 vote, the Court rejected [[Fred Korematsu]]'s challenge to the orders, again choosing to defer to the military and to Congress.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=217}} Writing for the majority, Justice Black authored what Wiecek called "an almost schizophrenic opinion, unpersuasive in its arguments and ambiguous in its ultimate impact".<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=356}} Justices Roberts, Jackson, and Murphy dissented: Roberts decried the "clear violation of Constitutional rights" implicit in punishing an American citizen "for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, based on his ancestry, and solely because of his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition toward the United States", while Murphy characterized the orders as a "fall ... into the ugly abyss of racism".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=250}} Rutledge joined Black's opinion immediately and unreservedly, silently taking part in what Ferren called "one of the saddest episodes in the Court's history".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=253, 255}}

The legal scholar Lester E. Mosher wrote that Rutledge's vote in ''Korematsu'' "represents the only deviation in his record as a champion of civil rights".<ref name=":9" />{{Rp|page=678}} Addressing the question of why the justice chose to depart from his customary support for equality and civil liberties in ''Yamashita'', the law professor Craig Green observes that Rutledge had great faith in the Roosevelt administration and was hesitant to question its assertions that the internment orders were vital to national security.<ref name=":11">{{Cite journal|last=Green|first=Craig|date=2006|title=Wiley Rutledge, Executive Detention, and Judicial Conscience at War|url=https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=law_lawreview|journal=[[Washington University Law Review]]|volume=84|issue=1|pages=99–177|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=October 28, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221028194713/https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&context=law_lawreview|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=132–133}} Green also argues that the modern condemnation of the Court's decision benefits substantially from hindsight: after the [[attack on Pearl Harbor]], the threat of sabotage appeared serious, and the government had hidden information that would have raised doubts about the accuracy of its assessments.<ref name=":11" />{{Rp|pages=130–131}} There is no evidence that Rutledge ever expressed regret for his vote in ''Korematsu'', unlike Douglas, who later condemned the decision in his memoirs.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=258–259}} Ferren suggests two possibilities: either Rutledge "abandon[ed] principle out of loyalty to his president" or he "act[ed] instead with a kind of courage" by reluctantly reaching an unpalatable conclusion that he felt the Constitution required.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=259}} In Ferren's view, "[t]he irony for Wiley Rutledge, when viewed in hindsight, is that he participated in a ruling of the sort that he would have berated, in other contexts, as another '''Dred Scott'' decision{{' "}}.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=259}}

=== Equal protection ===
[[File:Wiley Rutledge portrait by Harold M. Brett.jpg|thumb|Portrait by [[Harold Mathews Brett]], 1947]]
In cases involving [[Equal Protection Clause|equal protection]], Rutledge opposed discrimination against women, the poor, and racial minorities.<ref name=":13">{{Cite book|last=Ferren|first=John M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4V12AwAAQBAJ|title=Biographical Encyclopedia of the Supreme Court: The Lives and Legal Philosophies of the Justices|publisher=CQ Press|year=2006|isbn=978-1-4522-6728-9|editor-last=Urofsky|editor-first=Melvin I.|editor-link=Melvin I. Urofsky|location=Washington, DC|pages=442–448|language=en|chapter=Wiley Blount Rutledge Jr.|author-link=John M. Ferren}}</ref>{{Rp|page=445}} His dissent in ''[[Goesaert v. Cleary]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|335|464|1948}}|group=|name=}} according to Ferren, constituted "the first modern gender discrimination opinion".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=390}} In ''Goesaert'', the majority upheld a Michigan law that prevented women from being [[bartender]]s unless they were related to a male bar-owner.<ref name=":14">{{Cite book|last=Tushnet|first=Mark|url=https://archive.org/details/idissentgreatopp0000unse|title=I Dissent: Great Opposing Opinions in Landmark Supreme Court Cases|publisher=[[Beacon Press]]|year=2008|isbn=978-0-8070-0036-6|location=Boston|author-link=Mark Tushnet}}</ref>{{Rp|pages=127–128}} Writing that the Equal Protection Clause "require[s] lawmakers to refrain from invidious distinctions of the sort drawn by the statute challenged in this case", Rutledge maintained that Michigan's law was arbitrary and irrational.<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|pages=128–129}} His focus on the law's rationality mirrored the strategy pursued by future Supreme Court justice [[Ruth Bader Ginsburg]] in her efforts as an [[American Civil Liberties Union|ACLU]] attorney to challenge laws that discriminated on the basis of gender.<ref name=":14" />{{Rp|page=129}} Dissenting in ''[[Foster v. Illinois]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|332|134|1947}}|group=|name=}} Rutledge voted to reverse the convictions of defendants who had not been informed of their [[right to counsel]].<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=353}} He invoked the Due Process Clause but also maintained that equal protection had been violated, writing that poorer defendants, lacking an understanding of their rights, would receive "only the shadow of constitutional protections".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=353}} His ''Foster'' dissent was among the first opinions in which a Supreme Court justice argued against poverty-based discrimination on equal-protection grounds.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=353}} In his opinion in ''[[Fisher v. Hurst]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|333|147|1948}}|group=|name=}} Rutledge expressed concern about discrimination against racial minorities.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=384}} The Court had previously ordered Oklahoma to allow [[Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher|Ada Lois Sipuel]], an African-American woman, to study law.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=384}} In ''Fisher'', the Court rejected [[Thurgood Marshall]]'s [[mandamus]] petition to enforce that ruling.<ref name=":13" />{{Rp|page=445}} Rutledge dissented, arguing that Oklahoma's law school should be shut down in its entirety if the state refused to admit Sipuel.<ref name=":13" />{{Rp|page=445}} With the exception of Murphy, who would have held a hearing on the matter, Rutledge was the only justice to dissent.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=385}}

Cases involving voting rights were the only ones in which Rutledge rejected attempts to invoke the Equal Protection Clause.<ref name=":13" />{{Rp|page=445}} In ''[[Colegrove v. Green]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|328|549|1946}}|group=|name=}} voters challenged an Illinois congressional [[Redistricting in the United States|apportionment]] scheme that created districts with unequal numbers of people, arguing that it violated federal law and the Constitution.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=225}} The Court, by a vote of 4–3, rejected that argument; in a [[plurality opinion]], Frankfurter concluded that claims of malapportionment presented [[political question]]s that the federal courts [[Justiciability|lacked the authority to resolve]].<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=641}} Rutledge agreed with the dissenters—Black, Douglas, and Murphy—that the dispute did not present a nonjusticiable political question, but he nonetheless voted with the majority.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=390}} Stating that an insufficient amount of time remained for Illinois to redraw its districts before the election, he concluded in a separate opinion concurring in the judgment that it would be inequitable to strike down the map at that time.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=390}} In ''[[MacDougall v. Green]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|335|281|1948}}|group=|name=}} Rutledge similarly voted to defer to the states on questions involving election procedures.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=391}} Although the [[Progressive Party (United States, 1948)|Progressive Party]] had collected the 25,000 signatures required for it to appear on the Illinois ballot, it had not satisfied the requirement to collect 200 signatures from each of 50 counties—a requirement that harmed parties whose voters were concentrated in urban areas.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=391}} The Court, relying on ''Colegrove'', upheld Illinois's requirement.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=642}} Again parting ways with Black, Douglas, and Murphy but refusing to join the majority's analysis, Rutledge declined to grant the Progressive Party relief, maintaining that there was not enough time before the election for the state to print new ballots.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=391}} In both cases, Rutledge's vote was based on his concern that any possible remedy for the constitutional problem would be unfair as well.<ref name=":13" />{{Rp|page=445}}

=== Business, labor, and the Commerce Clause ===
Rutledge's dissent in ''[[United States v. United Mine Workers of America|United States v. United Mine Workers]]''{{Efn|{{ussc|330|258|1947}}|group=|name=}} was perhaps his most noteworthy opinion that did not involve questions of civil liberties.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1320}} A federal judge had issued a [[temporary restraining order]] enjoining [[John L. Lewis]] and his union of coal miners—the [[United Mine Workers]]—from [[Strike action|striking]] against the federal government, which had seized the coal mines due to labor unrest.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=383}} The union ignored the order and went on strike; the judge held both Lewis and the union in civil and criminal contempt and levied a $3.5 million (equivalent to ${{inflation|US-GDP|3.5|1947|fmt=c}} million in {{inflation/year|US-GDP}}) fine.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=331}} Before the Supreme Court, the union argued that the injunction against it had violated the [[Norris–La Guardia Act]], which forbade the courts from issuing injunctive relief against striking workers.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=331}} The Court rejected the union's claims, holding that the Norris–La Guardia Act applied only to disputes between employees and employers and that the federal government was not considered an employer under the statute.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=228}} A splintered majority thus upheld the injunction and the contempt convictions, although the fine was reduced to $700,000 (equivalent to ${{inflation|US-GDP|0.7|1947|fmt=c}} million in {{inflation/year|US-GDP}}).<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|pages=332–333}} In dissent, Rutledge argued that the temporary restraining order did violate the Norris–La Guardia Act.<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1320}} He also decried the district court's decision to hold the union in both civil and criminal contempt, writing that "the idea that a criminal prosecution and a civil suit for damages or equitable relief could be hashed together in a single criminal-civil hodgepodge would be shocking to every American lawyer and to most citizens".<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1321}} Rutledge's dissent was rendered in the midst of substantial hostility among political leaders and the general public toward the union's actions, and the scholar Fred L. Israel characterized it as "courageous".<ref name=":1" />{{Rp|page=1321}}

In cases involving the Constitution's [[Commerce Clause]], Rutledge favored a pragmatic approach that endeavored to balance the interests of states and the federal government.<ref name=":15">{{Cite journal|last=Mosher|first=Lester E.|date=April 1952|title=Mr. Justice Rutledge's Philosophy of the Commerce Clause|url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fnylr27&div=32&id=&page=|journal=[[New York University Law Review]]|volume=27|issue=2|pages=218–247|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=October 26, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211026032904/https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fnylr27&div=32&id=&page=|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|page=220}} Writing for the Court in ''[[Bob-Lo Excursion Co. v. Michigan]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|333|28|1948}}|group=|name=}} he ruled against a ferry company that had been charged with violating a Michigan civil rights law by refusing to serve African-Americans.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|page=231}} The ferry company, noting that its boats sailed from Detroit to [[Bois Blanc Island (Ontario)|Bois Blanc Island]] in Ontario, Canada, had argued that it was engaged in foreign commerce that was exempt from state regulation under the [[dormant Commerce Clause]] doctrine.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Klarman|first=Michael J.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LH88DwAAQBAJ|title=From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|year=2004|isbn=978-0-19-531018-4|location=New York|language=en|author-link=Michael Klarman|access-date=January 13, 2022|archive-date=March 18, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230318170813/https://books.google.com/books?id=LH88DwAAQBAJ|url-status=live}}</ref>{{Rp|page=223}} In a narrow ruling, Rutledge held that, although Michigan was technically regulating foreign commerce, the statute imposed no serious burden on it because the island was for all practical purposes a part of Detroit.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=669}} The case exemplified his flexible approach to the Commerce Clause.<ref name=":15" />{{Rp|page=220}} In ''[[Prudential Insurance Co. v. Benjamin]]'',{{Efn|{{ussc|328|408|1946}}|group=|name=}} Rutledge's opinion for the Court upheld a South Carolina tax on out-of-state insurers against a Commerce Clause challenge.<ref name=":512" />{{Rp|pages=224–225}} The [[McCarran–Ferguson Act]], passed by Congress in 1945, had authorized state regulation of the insurance market; Rutledge concluded that the act permissibly allowed South Carolina to discriminate against interstate commerce—something it otherwise lacked the power to do.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=381}} His conclusion that Congress could consent to state regulations of interstate commerce demonstrated his support for what one scholar called "flexibility in the operations of the federal system".<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=379}}

==Personal life and death==
[[File:Charles Brannan sworn in by Wiley Rutledge.jpg|alt=Refer to caption|thumb|In this 1948 photograph, Rutledge (left) administers the oath of office to Secretary of Agriculture [[Charles F. Brannan]].]]
Rutledge and his wife Annabel had three children: a son, Neal, and two daughters, Mary Lou and Jean Ann.<ref name=":24">{{Cite book |last=Harper |first=Fowler V. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YYpAAAAAIAAJ |title=Justice Rutledge and the Bright Constellation |publisher=[[Bobbs-Merrill]] |year=1965 |location=Indianapolis, Indiana |isbn=9780672800535 |oclc=876261135 |access-date=January 18, 2022 |archive-date=March 18, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230318170813/https://www.google.com/books/edition/Justice_Rutledge_and_the_Bright_Constell/YYpAAAAAIAAJ |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|page=19}} Raised a Southern Baptist, Rutledge later became a [[Christian humanism|Christian humanist]]; his religious views resembled those of [[Unitarianism]].<ref name=":13" />{{Rp|page=442}} He was universally regarded as a pleasant and friendly man who genuinely cared about everyone with whom he interacted.<ref name=":20" />{{Rp|page=132}}

Rutledge's perfectionism and penchant for hard work drove him to the point of exhaustion by the summer of 1949, and his friends and family expressed worry about his health.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Atkinson |first=David N. |url=https://archive.org/details/leavingbenchsupr0000atki |title=Leaving the Bench: Supreme Court Justices at the End |publisher=[[University Press of Kansas]] |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-7006-0946-8 |location=Lawrence, Kansas}}</ref>{{Rp|page=120}} On August 27, while in [[Ogunquit, Maine]], he experienced a [[hemorrhagic stroke]] and was hospitalized in nearby [[York Harbor, Maine|York Harbor]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Farley |first=Paul |date=April 2019 |title=Higher Ground |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fusab67&div=38&id=&page= |journal=Department of Justice Journal of Federal Law and Practice |volume=67 |issue=2 |pages=183–189 |access-date=June 17, 2022 |archive-date=June 17, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220617053840/https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fusab67&div=38&id=&page= |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|page=187}}<ref name=":21">{{Cite book |last=Keir Nash |first=A. E. |url=https://archive.org/details/supremecourtjust00melv |title=The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary |publisher=[[Garland Publishing]] |year=1994 |isbn=0-8153-1176-1 |editor-last=Urofsky |editor-first=Melvin I. |editor-link=Melvin I. Urofsky |location=New York |pages=391–393 |chapter=Wiley Blount Rutledge}}</ref>{{Rp|page=391}} The fifty-five-year-old justice drifted in and out of consciousness and, on September 10, died.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=416}} President [[Harry S. Truman]], writing to Rutledge's wife Annabel, stated that a "tower of strength has been lost to our national life";<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=416}} Chief Justice [[Fred M. Vinson]] praised the justice as "true to his ideals and, in all, a great American".<ref>{{Cite news|date=September 13, 1949|title=Funeral For U.S. Justice Rutledge To Be In Capital|page=9|work=Corsicana Semi-Weekly Light|agency=Associated Press|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/379136/rutledge-wiley-b-funeral-corsciana/|access-date=January 18, 2022|archive-date=January 18, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220118010252/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/379136/rutledge-wiley-b-funeral-corsciana/|url-status=live}}</ref> Rutledge's funeral service, conducted by [[A. Powell Davies]], was held at [[All Souls Church, Unitarian (Washington, D.C.)|All Souls' Unitarian Church]] on September 14.<ref>{{Cite news|date=September 15, 1949|title=Funeral Held in Washington For Justice Wiley Rutledge|page=6|work=[[Richmond Times-Dispatch]]|agency=Associated Press|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/92849782/rutledge-funeral/|access-date=January 18, 2022|archive-date=January 18, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220118010250/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/92849782/rutledge-funeral/|url-status=live}}</ref> A headstone in Rutledge's memory was placed at Mountain View Cemetery in Boulder, Colorado, but the grave is empty: as of 2008, his physical remains are held at [[Cedar Hill Cemetery (Suitland, Maryland)|Cedar Hill Cemetery]] in [[Suitland, Maryland]], pending further instructions from his family.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Christensen |first=George A. |date=March 2008 |title=Here Lies the Supreme Court: Revisited |url=https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fjspcth33&div=5&id=&page= |journal=[[Journal of Supreme Court History]] |volume=33 |issue=1 |pages=17–41 |doi=10.1111/j.1540-5818.2008.00177.x |s2cid=145227968 |access-date=June 10, 2022 |archive-date=May 27, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220527222041/https://heinonline.org/HOL/LandingPage?handle=hein.journals%2Fjspcth33&div=5&id=&page= |url-status=live |url-access=subscription }}</ref>{{Rp|page=25}} Rutledge's death was almost simultaneous with that of Murphy; Truman's appointments of [[Sherman Minton]] and [[Tom C. Clark]], respectively, to replace them led to a considerably more conservative Court.<ref name=":2" />{{Rp|page=110}}

== Legacy ==
Legal scholars have generally looked favorably upon Rutledge's tenure on the Supreme Court,<ref name=":20" />{{Rp|page=132}} although the brevity of his service has lessened his historical importance.<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|page=330}} In a 1965 biography, Fowler V. Harper opined that "[h]istory is writing Wiley Rutledge into the slender volume of 'Justices in the Great Tradition{{' "}}.<ref name=":24" />{{Rp|page=xix}} The political scientist A. E. Keir Nash responded in 1994 that "calling him a great justice looks somewhat like calling [[John F. Kennedy|John Kennedy]] a great president. It substitutes a wistful 'what might have been' for a realistic 'what was'."<ref name=":21" />{{Rp|pages=391–392}} A 1970 survey of judges and legal academics ranked Rutledge as the twenty-fourth-greatest justice of the Supreme Court; a similar 1993 assessment found that he had fallen to thirty-fifth place.<ref name=":22">{{Cite journal |last=Ross |first=William G. |date=Winter 1996 |title=The Ratings Game: Factors That Influence Judicial Reputation |url=https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1534&context=mulr&httpsredir=1&referer= |journal=[[Marquette Law Review]] |volume=79 |issue=2 |pages=402–452 |access-date=January 13, 2022 |archive-date=September 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210904003927/https://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1534&context=mulr&httpsredir=1&referer= |url-status=live }}</ref>{{Rp|page=427}} Observing that "short tenure naturally tends to depress rankings", the scholar William G. Ross suggested that "bright and able persons" such as Rutledge "would have received higher rankings—perhaps even as 'greats'—if their tenures had not been cut short".<ref name=":22" />{{Rp|page=413}} Timothy L. Hall argued in 2001 that Rutledge's judicial career "was like the unfinished first symphony of a composer who might have gone on to create great masterpieces but who died before they could ever flow from his pen{{nbsp}}... [H]is steady outpouring of opinions over the course of six years yielded only a tantalizing glimpse of what might have been."<ref name=":7" />{{Rp|pages=330, 332–333}}

== See also ==
{{colbegin}}
* [[List of justices of the Supreme Court of the United States]]
* [[List of United States Supreme Court justices by time in office]]
* [[List of law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States (Seat 3)]]
* [[List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Stone Court|United States Supreme Court cases during the Stone Court]]
* [[List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Vinson Court|United States Supreme Court cases during the Vinson Court]]
{{colend}}

== Notes ==
{{Notelist|30em}}

==References==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== Further reading ==

* {{Cite book |last=Pollak |first=Louis H. |title=Six Justices on Civil Rights |publisher=[[Oceana Publications]] |year=1983 |isbn=0-379-20044-9 |editor-last=Rotunda |editor-first=Ronald D. |editor-link=Ronald Rotunda |location=London, UK |pages=176–211 |chapter=Wiley Blount Rutledge: Profile of a Judge |ref=none |author-link=Louis H. Pollak |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/sixjusticesonciv00rotu/page/176/mode/2up}}
* {{Cite book |last=Rutledge |first=Wiley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0z7flzjYsKEC |title=A Declaration of Legal Faith |publisher=[[University of Kansas Press]] |year=1947 |location=Lawrence, Kansas |oclc=1180662 |ref=none}}
* {{Cite book |last=Stevens |first=John Paul |title=Mr. Justice |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |year=1956 |editor-last=Dunham |editor-first=Allison |location=Chicago |pages=176–202 |chapter=Mr. Justice Rutledge |oclc=985458722 |ref=none |author-link=John Paul Stevens |editor-last2=Kurland |editor-first2=Philip B. |editor-link2=Philip B. Kurland |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/mrjustice0000unse/page/n207/mode/2up}}
{{s-start}}
{{s-legal}}
{{s-bef|before=Seat established by 52 Stat. 584}}
{{s-ttl|title={{nowrap|Judge of the [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit]]}}|years=1939–1943}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Thurman Arnold]]}}
{{s-bef|before=[[James F. Byrnes]]}}
{{s-ttl|title=[[Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States]]|years=1943–1949}}
{{s-aft|after=[[Sherman Minton]]}}
{{s-end}}

{{SCOTUS Justices}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rutledge, Wiley}}
[[Category:1894 births]]
[[Category:1949 deaths]]
[[Category:American legal scholars]]
[[Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent]]
[[Category:Colorado lawyers]]
[[Category:Indiana University Maurer School of Law alumni]]
[[Category:Judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit]]
[[Category:Deans of law schools in the United States]]
[[Category:Legal educators]]
[[Category:Maryville College alumni]]
[[Category:Missouri Democrats]]
[[Category:People from Breckinridge County, Kentucky]]
[[Category:United States court of appeals judges appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt]]
[[Category:United States federal judges appointed by Franklin D. Roosevelt]]
[[Category:Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States]]
[[Category:University of Colorado alumni]]
[[Category:University of Colorado Law School alumni]]
[[Category:University of Colorado Law School faculty]]
[[Category:University of Iowa College of Law faculty]]
[[Category:University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni]]
[[Category:Washington University in St. Louis faculty]]
[[Category:Rutledge family]]