WASHINGTON–Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who told President Obama he will retire this summer, is a Chicago native, whose family has long-time ties to the city. Bill Barnhart is a Chicago journalist whose Stevens biography, written with Gene Schlickman, “John Paul Stevens: An Independent Life,” will be published next month by Northern Illinois University Press.
Barnhart highlighted Stevens Chicago connections for the Chicago Sun-Times:
1. Stevens’s father and grandfather built what was the world’s biggest hotel, The Stevens, on South Michigan Avenue, now the Chicago Hilton. That’s where the “S” crest above all the doors comes from.
2. His great uncle was Charles A. Stevens, owner of the former landmark Chas. A Stevens women’s apparel shop on State Street.
3. Stevens had an indirect brush with the law in his teenage years when his father and grandfather were indicted for embezzlement from the family business. His father, Ernest J. Stevens, was convicted in 1933, but the conviction was reversed by the Illinois Supreme Court.
4. Stevens grew up on 58th Street in Hyde Park, when to the U. of C. Laboratory Schools and the U. of C. undergraduate college. One of his mentors at college was Normal Maclean, author of A River Runs Through It. He was chairman of the board of the Chicago Maroon student newspaper during the restive years as America geared up for World War II. (His law degree is from Northwestern.)
5. Stevens is a life-long Chicago Cubs fan. He recalled being at Wrigley Field when Babe Ruth at the plate signaled to fans in the bleachers where he planned to hit his next home run .
6. When the Picasso statute was unveiled in Chicago, Stevens wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune speculating that the statute depicted a GOP elephant, erected by Mayor Richard J. Daley as a trophy to the Democratic Party.
7. Stevens’s first major dissent as a judge of the seventh Circuit U.DS. Court of Appeals came in the case of the Milwaukee priest Father James Groppi, who was jailed for disrupting the Wisconsin legislature in a protest over the treatment of poor people. Steven’s dissent was affirmed later, when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the 7th Circuit’s majority opinion.
8. Stevens represented baseball owner Charley Finley, who was an insurance executive with offices on Michigan Avenue. Finley and Stevens were exact opposites in personality – Finley was crude and loud. But Stevens helped Finley move the Athletics from Kansas City to Oakland.
9. Stevens is a champion bridge player. Many Chicagoans peg their memories of Stevens to bridge.
10. Steven’s experience with Chicago politics, including misdeeds by two Illinois Supreme Court judges, shaped his view of the law, especially his dislike of any sort of legal immunity for politicians. He ruled against President Clinton, for example, in the infamous Paula Jones case.