JOE GREENHILL (1914–2011)
One of Joe Greenhill’s biggest cases was one he ultimately
lost. In April 1950, Greenhill, then first assistant attorney general
for Texas, argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in Sweatt v.
Painter, a lawsuit brought by an African-American man denied
admission to the University of Texas School of Law. Although state
courts in Texas had ruled against Heman
Sweatt based on
the separate-but-equal doctrine, the Supreme Court unanimously held
that a law school the state had established for African-Americans was
grossly unequal to the UT law school. The high court’s ruling in
Sweatt was a precursor to its landmark 1954 decision in
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which led to an end of
segregation in schools across the country.
Despite being on the losing side in Sweatt early in his
career, Greenhill became a legal legend. But the man who was the
longest-serving justice on the Texas Supreme Court did not start out to
become an attorney. A Houston native, Greenhill enrolled in the
University of Texas at Austin in 1933 with the intention of becoming an
architect, later switching his major to geology and ultimately earning
B.A. and B.B.A. degrees in economics. Following graduation, Greenhill
received three job offers: floorwalker at Sears and Roebuck, selling
tires for Firestone, and working for what was then a new company called
IBM. “Anyway, with nothing better than that, I just went to law
school,” he later told an interviewer.
After graduating from law school in 1939, Greenhill began a career
that lasted almost to his death in February 2011 at the age of 96. His
first job was with the Houston law firm of Bryan, Suhr, Bering &
Bell, where he became a partner but made little money. As Greenhill
recalled, he worked at the firm for nothing during the first two
months. Greenhill left the firm after a year and a half to become a
briefing attorney at the Texas Supreme Court — a job that was
interrupted by World War II. During the war, Greenhill worked first in
intelligence and then as executive officer on a mine sweeper, the
U.S.S. Control. When the war ended, he returned to the Supreme
Court to finish his term as a briefing attorney.
Following Price Daniel’s election as Texas attorney general,
Greenhill joined his staff as the first assistant. Daniel put Greenhill
in charge of segregation cases, including Sweatt. As Greenhill
explained in a 1986 interview, his defense of segregation was not due
to prejudice: “First of all, there was not any preconceived
racism on my part. I had a job and I could do it or quit.”
When Greenhill argued Sweatt before the Supreme Court, the
chief counsel for the other side was Thurgood Marshall, who would become
the first African-American on the nation’s highest court. Six
years after the Sweatt decision, Greenhill and his
family visited the Supreme Court on the day the justices were to
announce their decision in Brown. As the decision was read, the
family sat next to Marshall, who as the U.S. solicitor general had been
the lead counsel in Brown. Following the announcement, an
elated Marshall placed the Greenhill's son, Bill, on his
shoulders and ran down the court corridor.
Greenhill returned to private practice in 1950 as a founding partner
of Graves, Dougherty & Greenhill in Austin. But Greenhill got
involved in politics in 1956 when he was asked to head up
Daniel’s gubernatorial campaign. In 1957, Daniel appointed
Greenhill to the state Supreme Court to replace Justice Few Brewster,
who had resigned due to ill health. That was the beginning of
Greenhill’s 25-year tenure on Texas’ highest civil court,
including the last 10 years as its chief justice.
In 1958, Greenhill faced a tough challenger in the Democratic primary
when he sought election to the Supreme Court. Sarah
T.
Hughes, who had been a state district judge for two
decades,
sought to become the first woman on the Supreme Court and set her
sights on Greenhill’s seat. But Greenhill emerged the victor
after a hard-fought race, winning 50.6 percent of the vote.
One of Greenhill’s greatest accomplishments as chief justice
was the 1980 passage of a constitutional amendment that gave the Texas
courts of civil appeals criminal jurisdiction, except for appeals in
which the death penalty is assessed. The change helped alleviate a
backlog at the Court of Criminal Appeals. Greenhill also worked in the
1980s to change laws that discouraged arbitration and mediation in lieu
of litigation. That effort also reduced backlogs in the courts.
Remarking on his long years of service on the court, Greenhill once
said, “I brought to the Supreme Court the desire that it be my
career, and not just a stepping stone.”
No rocking chair awaited Greenhill when he retired from the court in
1982. He joined Baker Botts in Austin as of counsel and kept regular
office hours until about two years before his death.
