Robert H. Jackson

Robert Houghwout Jackson ( born February 13, 1892, at Spring Creek Township, Warren County, Pennsylvania, † October 9, 1954 in Washington, DC) was Attorney General, Supreme Court of the United States and American Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.

Origin and family

Jackson was born the only son of the farmer and woodcutter William Eldred Jackson and his wife Angelina Houghwout. Angelina had Dutch roots. Jackson grew up with his sister in Frewsburg, New York. On April 24, 1916 he married Irene Alice Gerhardt from Kingston, together the couple had two children: William Eldred Jackson II (* July 19, 1919; † 4 December 1999 ) and Mary Margaret Jackson ( born February 11, 1921).

Early activity

Jackson studied law at the Law School of Albany, graduated in 1912 and put in the following year his Bar Exam from. Still in 1913, he settled in Jamestown, New York. Since 1934, Jackson was General Counsel at the Internal Revenue Service, the highest financial authority at the federal level. From 1936 to 1938, Jackson Deputy Solicitor General and made in various antitrust cases a name.

After a tenure as Solicitor General from 1938 to 1939, he was appointed by President Roosevelt as the successor to Frank Murphy for Attorney General. With the appointment of Harlan Fiske Stone to Chief Justice in 1940 by Jackson took the vacant seat as a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

In 1943 he was the lead in a controversial judgment (West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette ), which annulled a regulation which was a public school the opportunity to engage their students to the mast greeting and to impose sanctions against these students for violations. Jackson led in this case to the majority vote that voted for the illegality of the scheme.

Chief Prosecutor at Nuremberg

Jackson was 1945 on leave from his position as Supreme Court Justice to assist in the drafting of the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal, which provided the legal basis for the Nuremberg trials. Then traveled Jackson to Germany, where he was the chief prosecutor of the United States. The later inventor of the term "genocide", the Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin Genocide researcher and assisted him with that. This role filled Jackson not only with juridical and rhetorical skill but also with great devotion. After the first trial, he gave up this position, however, and returned to the United States.

Death

Jackson died on October 9, 1954 at the age of 62 in Washington, DC and was buried in Frewsburg (New York).

Others

The work of Robert H. Jackson at the Nuremberg Trials was the subject of the two-parter " Nuremberg - In the name of humanity " ( oT: "Nuremberg "). Jackson himself was played by Alec Baldwin.