Katherine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post, is remembered for her heroic decision to publish the “Pentagon Papers” – a decision entirely vindicated by the Supreme Court. But she had another – admittedly much briefer – involvement in a crucial Supreme Court decision.
In 1940, not long after Felix Frankfurter had become an associate justice, the Supreme Court refused to take the case of Joe Vernon, and it denied a petition for rehearing. On the evening Vernon was to die, his attorney called the Supreme Court and asked for Mr. Justice Frankfurter. The court gave the attorney the phone number of Philip L. Graham, who was then Frankfurter’s law clerk and who would later become the publisher of the Post. When the attorney called the number he was given, it was Phil Graham’s wife Katherine who answered the phone. She informed the attorney that her husband was working at Frankfurter’s home in Georgetown, but that she would phone him and give him the message. She did; and Graham immediately returned the call, putting Justice Frankfurter on the line. Vernon’s lawyer was able to persuade the Justice that even though the Supreme Court had already twice refused to hear the case, a stay of execution should be granted to enable him to file still another application to the Court. Frankfurter, new to the bench, was not certain as to his authority. He called Edward Cullinan, the Court’s deputy clerk and an old hand at Court procedures. Cullinan assured the Justice that he had the power to act. “All right,” said Frankfurter. “Stop the execution.”
This proved easier said than done. With only half an hour to go, Cullinan telephoned the warden of Vernon’s prison and told him that Justice Frankfurter had issued a stay. The warden replied acerbically that he took orders from the governor and the attorney general of Alabama, but not from some stranger over the phone. Frantically, Cullinan put through a call to the attorney general of Alabama, who fortunately remembered him from a previous visit to the Court. The attorney general contacted the warden, and the execution was halted with but minutes to spare.
Vernon’s case was subsequently heard – and reversed – by the Supreme Court.
Katherine Graham died on this date, July 17, 2001.
