SOBELOFF, SIMON E. (1894–1973)

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, to immigrant parents, Simon Sobeloff began his long and distinguished public career at the age of fourteen as a congressional page. After graduation from the University of Maryland School of Law in 1915, Sobeloff alternated private practice with public service, including a term as United States attorney for the District of Maryland, until 1952. In that year, he was appointed chief judge of the Maryland Court of Appeals, and in 1954 President dwight d. eisenhower named him solicitor general of the United States.

While solicitor general, Sobeloff argued the government's case in the implementation phase of brown v. board of education (1955) and also declined as a matter of conscience to sign the government's brief in Peters v. Hobby (1955), a loyalty oath case.

In 1955, President Eisenhower nominated Sobeloff to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, but his confirmation was delayed for a year by southern Democrats who distrusted his views on school desegregation. Sobeloff served on the Fourth Circuit from 1956 until his death and was chief judge from 1958 to 1964.

As chief judge, Sobeloff wrote numerous majority opinions affirming school board attempts to comply with Brown v. Board of Education. He grew increasingly impatient with school board progress, however, and after retiring as chief judge, he dissented frequently in the numerous school desegregation cases heard en banc by the Fourth Circuit. Several of his dissents led to Supreme Court review and reversal of Fourth Circuit holdings that approved school board actions, as Sobeloff consistently argued for the complete dismantling of the desegregated school systems in the face of continued school board recalcitrance and delay.

Other Sobeloff dissents led to Supreme Court majority opinions, including Davis v. North Carolina (1966), which invalidated a confession given in coercive circumstances. In other cases, Sobeloff went further than the Supreme Court was prepared to go, holding, for example, that a harsher sentence on retrial following reversal of a conviction unconstitutionally conditioned the right to a fair trial.

Frequently described by Maryland Governor Theodore R. McKeldin as a "champion of the underdog," Sobeloff reflected in his judicial opinions a consistent concern both for meticulous due process and for the rights of minorities, the underprivileged, the dissenter, and the prisoner.

Alison Grey Anderson
(1992)

Bibliography

Tribute Issue 1974 Maryland Law Review 34, no. 4:483–540.