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Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

Abstract

The Supreme Court had recessed last summer when a federal court in July declared the American war in Cambodia unconstitutional, raising the question whether the war should be permitted to continue in the meantime while the government appealed. The question went first to Justice Thurgood Marshall, who refused to act alone, and then to Justice William O. Douglas who was found in hiking boots and jeans at his mountain retreat in Gooseprairie, Washington. Douglas heard argument on both sides and then ordered an immediate halt to the war. He said he was doing what any judge would do under the circumstances, because "we know that someone is about to die," either innocent "Cambodian peasants" or "the American navigator who drops a ton of bombs on a Cambodian village".

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