Guest Essayist: Richard Epstein
Mahlon Pitney was appointed to the United States Supreme Court by President William H. Taft in 1912, and served there for ten and one-half years until his retirement in December, 1922. He is generally regarded as a footnote in the annals of American Supreme Court justices. But for the ten years that he was on the Court, he was in my view a powerful intellect who often bested both Justices Holmes and Brandeis on the many occasions when their views clashed.