Tag: Supreme Court

JULY 11, 1921: BATHTUBS OF THE PRESIDENTS II — SPLISH SPLASH, I WAS STUCK IN THE BATH

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Former President William Howard Taft became the tenth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on July 11, 1921,  serving until his death in 1930. He was the only person to ever hold both positions. His long career also included stints as Secretary of War, Solicitor General, Governor of Cuba and Appellate Judge. The Almanac will, however, ignore all that stuff to concentrate on the burning question: Did Taft really get stuck in the White House bathtub?

 

Taft was a heavy-set fellow, weighing in at 340 pounds. Occasionally, chairs challenged his girth. He did have the White House bathtub super-sized during his presidency. That tub remained in taftthe White House until removed during renovation by a narrower president.  And, in an interesting coincidence (?), the Taft Justice Department was involved in breaking up the Bathtub Trust (aka the Loo League), a cartel of porcelain makers who were playing price-fixing games with bathtubs and toilets. Jump on that, conspiracy theorists. Then there’s that telling photograph of four men sitting in the Taft Tub. White House plumbers, perhaps. Precursors of the Nixon gang?

Some stories have the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff extricating Taft from the tub. Others talk of lots and lots of butter. But is it true? Or was it a political dirty trick? Or a clever hoax?  H.L. Mencken maintains his innocence.

For further enlightenment see Part I of our  Bathtubs of the Presidents series.  And watch for Bathtubs of the Presidents III in which we will reveal who recently shared the White House bathtub with whom.

 

 

 

MAY 16, 1988: ONE MAN’S TRASH

Posted on by Richard Daybell

trashcan

In 1984, the Laguna Beach Police Department learned from unnamed sources that one Billy Greenwood had a little home-based business selling illegal drugs. An investigator asked the neighborhood’s regular trash collector to turn over to police the plastic garbage bags he collected from the front of Greenwood’s house. In the garbage, the investigator found tell-tale signs of drug use. Using that information, police obtained a warrant to search Greenwood’s home. Lo and behold, when officers searched the house, they found cocaine and marijuana along with dirty dishes and other signs of poor housekeeping. Greenwood was promptly arrested.

 

California courts ruled that searching the trash was a no-no under both federal and state law. The matter found its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  On May 16, 1988, the Court reversed lower courts and ruled by a 6–2 vote that no warrant was necessary to search the trash because Greenwood had no reasonable expectation of privacy having put it right out on the curb like that.  No matter that he had put the trash in opaque plastic bags whose contents could not be seen without opening and that he expected it to be on the street only a short time before being taken to the dump.  The Court said it was “common knowledge” that garbage at the side of the street is “readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public,” none of whom might have search warrants. Not only that, Greenwood had left the trash there expressly so that the trash collector, a perfect stranger, could take it, and do with it as he pleased.

 

In dissent, Justice Brennan reasoned that the possibility the police or other “unwelcome meddlers” might rummage through the trash bags “does not negate the expectation of privacy in their contents any more than the possibility of a burglary negates an expectation of privacy in the home.”  Under existing law, the bags could not have been searched without a warrant if Greenwood had been carrying them around in public. Merely leaving them on the curb for the garbage man to collect, Brennan argued, should not be found to remove that expectation of privacy any more than leaving an unattended bag in an airport terminal would. “Scrutiny of another’s trash is contrary to commonly accepted notions of civilized behavior.”

 

And one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

MAY 10, 1893: THE SUPREME COURT SAYS TOMAHTO

Posted on by Richard Daybell

An 1883 tariff act required a tax to be paid on imported vegetables, but not fruit. The Nix family, tomato entrepreneurs, went to court to recover back duties paid to the Port of New York under protest, claiming that they owed nothing because, botanically, a tomato is a fruit, a seed-bearing structure growing from the flowering part of a plant. The case made it to the Supreme Court where, on May 10, 1893, the justices unanimously ruled that, botany be damned, a tomato is a vegetable.

At the hearing, both the plaintiffs’ counsel and the defendant’s counsel made extensive use of dictionaries. The plaintiffs’ counsel read in evidence the definitions of the word tomato, while the defendant’s counsel read the definitions of the words pea, eggplant, cucumber, squash, and pepper. In a clear case of one-upmanship, the plaintiff then read in evidence the definitions of potato, turnip, parsnip, cauliflower, cabbage, carrot and bean.

The court decided in favor of the defense and found that the tomato should be classified under the customs regulations as a vegetable, based on the ways in which it is used, and the popular perception to this end.  Justice Horace Gray, in a horticultural burst of logic, stated that:

“The passages cited from the dictionaries define the word ‘fruit’ as the seed of plants, or that part of plants which contains the seed, and especially the juicy, pulpy products of certain plants, covering and containing the seed. These definitions have no tendency to show that tomatoes are ‘fruit,’ as distinguished from ‘vegetables,’ in common speech, or within the meaning of the tariff act.”

He acknowledged that botanically, tomatoes are classified as a “fruit of the vine”; nevertheless, they are seen as vegetables because they were usually eaten as a main course instead of being eaten as a dessert. In making his decision, Justice Gray brought up another case in which the court found that although a bean is botanically a seed, in common parlance a bean is seen as a vegetable. While on the subject, Gray clarified the status of the cucumber, squash, pea, and turnip for good measure.

It would take another century to declare ketchup a vegetable.

MAY 10, 1893: THE SUPREME COURT SAYS TOMAHTO

Posted on by Richard Daybell

An 1883 tariff act required a tax to be paid on imported vegetables, but not fruit. The Nix family, tomato entrepreneurs, went to court to recover back duties paid to the Port of New York under protest, claiming that they owed nothing because, botanically, a tomato is a fruit, a seed-bearing structure growing from the flowering part of a plant. The case made it to the Supreme Court where, on May 10, 1893, the justices unanimously ruled that, botany be damned, a tomato is a vegetable.

At the hearing, both the plaintiffs’ counsel and the defendant’s counsel made extensive use of dictionaries. The plaintiffs’ counsel read in evidence the definitions of the word tomato, while the defendant’s counsel read the definitions of the words pea, eggplant, cucumber, squash, and pepper. In a clear case of one-upmanship, the plaintiff then read in evidence the definitions of potato, turnip, parsnip, cauliflower, cabbage, carrot and bean.

The court decided in favor of the defense and found that the tomato should be classified under the customs regulations as a vegetable, based on the ways in which it is used, and the popular perception to this end.  Justice Horace Gray, in a horticultural burst of logic, stated that:

“The passages cited from the dictionaries define the word ‘fruit’ as the seed of plants, or that part of plants which contains the seed, and especially the juicy, pulpy products of certain plants, covering and containing the seed. These definitions have no tendency to show that tomatoes are ‘fruit,’ as distinguished from ‘vegetables,’ in common speech, or within the meaning of the tariff act.”

He acknowledged that botanically, tomatoes are classified as a “fruit of the vine”; nevertheless, they are seen as vegetables because they were usually eaten as a main course instead of being eaten as a dessert. In making his decision, Justice Gray brought up another case in which the court found that although a bean is botanically a seed, in common parlance a bean is seen as a vegetable. While on the subject, Gray clarified the status of the cucumber, squash, pea, and turnip for good measure.

It would take another century to declare ketchup a vegetable.

MAY 16, 1988: ONE MAN’S TRASH

Posted on by Richard Daybell

trashcan

In 1984, the Laguna Beach Police Department learned from unnamed sources that one Billy Greenwood had a little home-based business selling illegal drugs. An investigator asked the neighborhood’s regular trash collector to turn over to police the plastic garbage bags he collected from the front of Greenwood’s house. In the garbage, the investigator found tell-tale signs of drug use. Using that information, police obtained a warrant to search Greenwood’s home. Lo and behold, when officers searched the house, they found cocaine and marijuana along with dirty dishes and other signs of poor housekeeping. Greenwood was promptly arrested.

 

California courts ruled that searching the trash was a no-no under both federal and state law. The matter found its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.  On May 16, 1988, the Court reversed lower courts and ruled by a 6–2 vote that no warrant was necessary to search the trash because Greenwood had no reasonable expectation of privacy having put it right out on the curb like that.  No matter that he had put the trash in opaque plastic bags whose contents could not be seen without opening and that he expected it to be on the street only a short time before being taken to the dump.  The Court said it was “common knowledge” that garbage at the side of the street is “readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public,” none of whom might have search warrants. Not only that, Greenwood had left the trash there expressly so that the trash collector, a perfect stranger, could take it, and do with it as he pleased.

 

In dissent, Justice Brennan reasoned that the possibility the police or other “unwelcome meddlers” might rummage through the trash bags “does not negate the expectation of privacy in their contents any more than the possibility of a burglary negates an expectation of privacy in the home.”  Under existing law, the bags could not have been searched without a warrant if Greenwood had been carrying them around in public. Merely leaving them on the curb for the garbage man to collect, Brennan argued, should not be found to remove that expectation of privacy any more than leaving an unattended bag in an airport terminal would. “Scrutiny of another’s trash is contrary to commonly accepted notions of civilized behavior.”

 

And one person’s trash is another person’s treasure.

JULY 11, 1921: BATHTUBS OF THE PRESIDENTS II — SPLISH SPLASH, I WAS STUCK IN THE BATH

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Former President William Howard Taft became the tenth Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on July 11, 1921,  serving until his death in 1930. He was the only person to ever hold both positions. His long career also included stints as Secretary of War, Solicitor General, Governor of Cuba and Appellate Judge. The Almanac will, however, ignore all that stuff to concentrate on the burning question: Did Taft really get stuck in the White House bathtub?

 

Taft was a heavy-set fellow, weighing in at 340 pounds. Occasionally, chairs challenged his girth. He did have the White House bathtub super-sized during his presidency. That tub remained in taftthe White House until removed during renovation by a narrower president.  And, in an interesting coincidence (?), the Taft Justice Department was involved in breaking up the Bathtub Trust (aka the Loo League), a cartel of porcelain makers who were playing price-fixing games with bathtubs and toilets. Jump on that, conspiracy theorists. Then there’s that telling photograph of four men sitting in the Taft Tub. White House plumbers, perhaps. Precursors of the Nixon gang?

Some stories have the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff extricating Taft from the tub. Others talk of lots and lots of butter. But is it true? Or was it a political dirty trick? Or a clever hoax?  H.L. Mencken maintains his innocence.

For further enlightenment see Part I of our  Bathtubs of the Presidents series.  And watch for Bathtubs of the Presidents III in which we will reveal the people who share the bathtub of our current president.