Home > Crime and Punishment in America > Felix Frankfurter Biography

Born November 15, 1882 (Vienna, Austria) Died February 22, 1965 (Washington, D.C.)

Supreme Court justice

Felix Frankfurter was one of America's more powerful people in the legal profession who sought increased protection for criminal defendants in the early twentieth century. As a Supreme Court justice, he was a major force behind the creation and validation of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's (1892–1945; served 1933–45) New Deal legislation. The New Deal was a collection of federal programs created in the 1930s to assist those most affected by the economic hardships of the Great Depression (1929–41).

As a legal scholar, Frankfurter was keenly interested in politics, and as a...