Arne Michaels

Arnold “Arne” Michaels, Jr. (March 26, 1934 – August 14, 2017) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1980 to 2017. He previously served as the Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Maine from 1979 to 1980, the United States Attorney for Maine from 1977 to 1979, and the Attorney General of Maine from 1972 to 1977.

Early life and early career
Arnold “Arne” Michaels, Jr. was born on March 26, 1934 in Bangor, Maine to Arnold Michaels, Sr., a lawyer and his wife, Eleanor Kerry. Michaels attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he graduated in 1954 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and the University of Virginia School of Law where he graduated with his J.D. in 1957. He reached adulthood during the 1960s and developed a belief in civil rights and equal protections for everyone. Soon after graduation from Virginia, Michaels entered private law practice in Brunswick, Maine. He was a partner at Michaels, Lang, & Lovell which was founded by his father from 1958 to 1964. He then moved to Portland and was a law professor at the University of Maine School of Law from 1964 to 1972.

Attorney General of Maine
Arne Michaels was appointed Attorney General of Maine in 1972. During his time as attorney general, he took prominent stances on many controversial issues affecting Maine at the time including opposition to a proposed dam which he opposed on environmental grounds. He was also a supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) during his tenure as state attorney general and other anti-discrimination measures. He served in this office for five years from his appointment in 1972 until his resignation to become a United States Attorney in 1977.

United States Attorney and Federal Judgeship
Attorney General Michaels was was appointed United States Attorney for Maine in 1977. He served in that capacity from 1977 to October 5, 1979 when he was appointed to the United States District Court for the District of Maine. Michaels served as a federal judge until he was appointed to the United States Supreme Court as an Associate Justice on May 17, 1980.

United States Supreme Court
Judge Michaels’ appointment to the Supreme Court was praised by liberal and civil rights groups who commended his record on civil rights and referred to him as an “apolitical fighter for equal rights”. On the other hand opponents of the Civil Rights Movement accused him of being “an inexperienced judge with a tendency for judicial activism”. His first major decision came in 1986 when he wrote the dissenting opinion against upholding Georgia's anti-sodomy law against a substantive due process attack. He wrote the majority opinion in a 1988 decision that declared that the death penalty as applied to offenders below 16 years of age was unconstitutional as a cruel and unusual punishment. Justice Michaels voted to uphold affirmative action throughout various cases that came forth in the 1990s.

In the 2000s he wrote the dissenting opinion on many major issues including on employment discrimination in regards to a wage gap and campaign finance. He was the author of the court opinion that deemed surveillance by the National Security Agency without search warrants and other regular measures to be unconstitutional in 2007. He was with the minority in his vote to strike down state bans on partial-birth abortion in 2014 and in the majority in his final case in 2016 where he voted that businesses and their owners could assert their exercise of religion as long as provisions to protect against discrimination were in place.

Death and Legacy
Justice Michaels was last seen publicly when he administered then Vice President-Elect Jon Herrera’s oath of office on January 20, 2017. He died of natural causes at his home in Portland, Maine on August 14, 2017 at the age of eighty-three. He is remembered as a loose constructionist and supported the idea that the the Constitution is a “living document” or subject to change in interpretation in response to changes in society and circumstance. He was a supporter of gender equality and equal rights for racial, sexual, and religious minorities, as well as for privacy rights. He was a prominent member of the court’s liberal wing who believed that the Supreme Court should take up cases during cases when federal appeals courts were in conflict on issues of federal law and cases when public policy could potentially infringe upon the individual rights or privacy rights of the American people. He was succeeded by Yvette Clarke-Johnson who was appointed by President Mark Hollis who clerked for Michaels from 1986 to 1990.