Rare but Grudging Judicial About-Face in Bias Case

[elleng]

“The court now understands,” Mr. Clemon said, “the unwillingness of black men to go back to being called ‘boy.’ ”

Last year, the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, ruled that there were no racial overtones when a white manager at a Tyson chicken plant in Gadsden, Ala., called adult black men working there “boy.” . . .

On Dec. 16, more than a year after the initial decision, the appeals court reversed course. The new ruling was opaque and grudging, but Mr. Clemon said he welcomed it, particularly since it is very unusual for a federal appeals court panel simply to change its mind. “I don’t recall it ever happening,” said Mr. Clemon, who graduated from law school in 1968.

Judge Edward E. Carnes wrote the new decision, now for a unanimous panel. He said the court had reconsidered the evidence in the case and “we now reach a different conclusion.” . . .

“Wisdom too often never comes,” Justice Frankfurter wrote, “and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/us/tyson-discrimination-verdict-restored-by-appeals-court.html?_r=1&hp

[TheDebbieDee]

1. I wonder if Justice Frankfurter's quote is original...............

“Wisdom too often never comes,” Justice Frankfurter wrote, “and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.”

If this is an original quote, it's a great one................

[elleng]

2. Yes, it is.

The exact quote is "Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not
to reject it merely because it comes late." Its author was former U.
S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Felix Frankfurter, dissenting in
Henslee v. Union Planters Bank, 335 U.S. 600 (1948).

From the Legal Information Institute:

The Court held in Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994), that a state
prisoner may not maintain an action under 42 U.S. C. §1983 if the
direct or indirect effect of granting relief would be to invalidate
the state sentence he is serving. . .

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=319755