Jan. 23, 1915: Future jurist Potter Stewart is born in Jackson, Mich. Stewart was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1958 by President Eisenhower and during a tenure that spanned more than 22 years he helped sort out many of the most vexing legal issues facing American business. Among the cases Stewart heard were Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (affirmative action), Chiarella v. United States (insider trading) and Zacchini v. Scripps Howard Broadcasting Co. (privacy protection for human cannonball acts) In fact, he wrote what is perhaps the second-most quoted line in the court’s history. Writing a concurrence in Jacobellis v. Ohio, an obscenity case, Stewart noted that criminal laws relating to sexually explicit material are constitutionally limited to “hard-core pornography.” Stewart did not attempt to define that term. “But,” he wrote, “I know it when I see it and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” The only phrase quoted more often is Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s admonition that the First Amendment wouldn’t protect someone who shouts “patent infringement!” in a crowded Research In Motion office. — Jeffrey Kanige
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