Henry W Sawyer

Early life​[​edit​]

Sawyer was born in ​Philadelphia​ in 1918, the son of Henry Washington Sawyer II and his wife,
Helen Curet Sawyer.​[1]​ Although he was a ​Quaker​, Sawyer's family had a tradition of military
service dating to the ​Civil War​ when his immigrant grandfather, the first Henry Washington
Sawyer, served in the ​1st New Jersey Volunteer Cavalry​.[2]​​ After the war, Sawyer's grandfather
became the owner of the ​Chalfonte Hotel​ in ​Cape May, New Jersey​.[3]​ ​ Sawyer's father, Henry
Sawyer II, died in the ​1918 flu pandemic​two months before his son was born, and Sawyer was
raised by his mother, a school teacher, in Philadelphia's ​Germantown​ neighborhood.​[4]​[5]​ He
attended high school at ​Chestnut Hill Academy​, graduating in 1936.​[6]​ After graduation, Sawyer
enrolled at the ​University of Pennsylvania​ (Penn) where he wrote for ​The Daily
Pennsylvanian​,​joined the ​Zeta Psi​ fraternity, and was a member of ​Phi Beta Kappa​.[5]​
​ [7]
He graduated in 1940 and started at the ​Penn law school​ that same year.​[5]​ At the outbreak of
World War II​, Sawyer was commissioned in the ​United States Navy​.[6]​ ​ He served in both the
Atlantic and Pacific theaters, but later said that he saw very little combat.​[5]​ Most of his service
was aboard the ​USS ​Patoka​, a ​fleet oiler​.[8]​
​ In July 1945, Sawyer was transferred to ​USS ​Swan​, a
minesweeper​, on which he served until December of that year.​[8]​ After the war, he returned to
law school and graduated in 1948. While in school, he married Grace Scull in 1946.​[9]​ They
remained married until her death in 1999 and had three children together: two sons, Jonathan and
Henry, and a daughter, Rebecca.​[6]

Legal career​[​edit​]

After graduation, Sawyer joined the law firm of ​Drinker Biddle & Reath​, where he remained for
his entire career.​[6]​ Shortly after joining the firm, he was assigned to work as a temporary
assistant district attorney in the ​O'Malley Case​, a prosecution of political corruption in the city
(the Philadelphia district attorney's office at that time was mostly staffed by part-time employees
drawn from firms as needed).​[10]​[11]​ Working under lead prosecutor ​Laurence Howard Eldredge
and alongside assistant prosecutor ​Lemuel Braddock Schofield​, Sawyer assisted in the trial of
Chief Magistrate ​John J. O'Malley​ for 206 counts of ​malfeasance​ in office.​[12]​ O'Malley was
found not guilty in two trials in 1948 and 1949.​[12]​ Sawyer was called back into the Navy in 1950
during the ​Korean War​ and later as a foreign service officer in Europe. He returned to
Philadelphia in 1953.​[13]
As a lawyer, Sawyer focused on civil litigation in corporate law, at which he excelled.​[14]​[15]​ He
also spent much of his time in the field of civil liberties, for which he became more well-known
but less well-compensated.​[14]​ In 1953, he was one of several volunteer (​pro bono)​ defense
attorneys in the case of ​United States v. Kuzma,​ a prosecution of ​Communist​ sympathizers under
the ​Smith Act​, which barred anyone from advocating for the overthrow of the American
government.​[16]​ The defendants were found guilty, but their convictions were reversed in 1957
after the ​United States Supreme Court​ overturned the Smith Act in ​Yates v. United States​.​[17]
Sawyer argued again in favor of someone accused of communist sympathies in ​Deutch v. United
States​.[18]​
​ Sawyer's client, Bernhard Deutch, was a graduate student at the University of
Pennsylvania who was subpoenaed by the ​House Un-American Activities Committee​ in 1954.​[19]
Deutch answered most of the committee's questions about his own former membership in the
Communist Party​ as an undergraduate at ​Cornell University​, but declined to answer questions
about other members of the party, asserting that his "moral scruples" prevented him from doing
so.​[20]​ The House found Deutch in ​contempt​, and the charge was upheld in federal district
court.​[20]​ The ​D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals​ affirmed the conviction, which Sawyer appealed to
the Supreme Court. To his surprise, they took the case and reversed the conviction on the
grounds that the government failed to prove "the pertinence of the questions".​[18]​[21]​ In an article
written after Sawyer's death, Judge ​Stewart Dalzell​ credited Sawyer's skillful argument in
persuading the Court to overturn the conviction.​[22]

Abington School District v. Schempp​[​edit​]

Justice ​Tom C. Clark​ wrote the opinion in ​Abington School District v. Schempp.​

Main article: ​Abington School District v. Schempp

In 1957, Pennsylvania law required that public school ​students read Bible verses​ to start the day.
The ​Abington School District​ added another requirement that the students read the ​Lord's Prayer​.
Several ​Unitarians​ in ​Abington​, a suburb of Philadelphia, objected and held a protest against it.
One of them, ​Ellery Schempp​, contacted the ​American Civil Liberties Union​ about the issue.​[23]
The ACLU and Schempp's parents believed the school prayer law violated the ​First​ and
Fourteenth Amendments​ to the United States Constitution. The ACLU's lawyers saw Sawyer,
then Board chair and later general counsel of the ACLU's Philadelphia affiliate, as the best
choice to argue it, given his skill as a litigator and his success in the ​Deutch​ case.​[24]​ Sawyer
agreed and filed suit in ​federal district court​.[25]
​
As described by Judge ​Louis H. Pollak​ in a 1999 article, Sawyer's "theory of the case was that
the prescribed Bible reading, whether or not followed by the Lord's Prayer, constituted both an
establishment of religion​ and an infringement of the ​free exercise of religion​ in contravention of
the First Amendment as made applicable to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment."​[26]​ The
trial began in 1958 before a three-judge panel.​[27]​ The panel agreed in an opinion written by
Judge ​John Biggs, Jr.​[28]​ After the trial, the state legislature changed the law to allow students to
be excused from the Bible readings if they wished. In further hearings in 1962 the court, again in
an opinion by Biggs, held that the law still violated the Constitution by allowing the state "to
introduce a religious ceremony into the public schools of the Commonwealth."​[29]
The Supreme Court agreed to hear the appeal by the school district, and Sawyer again argued the
case.​[30]​ On June 17, 1963, the Court issued an 8–1 opinion upholding the district court ruling and
striking down Pennsylvania's school prayer law. In the opinion by Justice ​Tom C. Clark​, the
Court enunciated what would become the heart of Establishment Clause jurisprudence: that "to
withstand the strictures of the Establishment Clause, there must be a secular legislative purpose
and a primary effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion."​[31]​ Pollak credited Sawyer's
advocacy at the district court level with helping to win the case: "it is clear that a masterly
litigator planted in trial court the seeds of the fruit that was to ripen on appeal."​[32]