6.4: President's Commission On Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice 1965-1967

Scope and content:

President's Commission On Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice(1.75 cu.ft.) begins with a record volume comprising correspondence, memoranda, report drafts, and a printed copy of the supplemental statement to the commission's report. Some of the contents of this volume are duplicated in the unbound records that follow. These other records include subseries of correspondence, memoranda, notes, chapter drafts of the report, drafts of the supplemental statement and a printed version of the report. Miscellaneous documents, printed materials, and clippings complete the series.

Based on the awareness of the crime problem that Powell had articulated in many of his speeches as ABA President, President Johnson appointed Powell to this commission. Though this diverse committee agreed on many solutions to the crime problem, there were differences among the commissioners. Powell's differing views on the questions of wire tapping and certain Supreme Court decisions led to his drafting of the "Supplemental Statement on Constitutional Limitations," published over the names of seven commission members.

Powell anticipated criticism of the inconsistencies between the views expressed in his work on this commission and some of his Supreme Court opinions. In an annotation (written after Powell was appointed to the Supreme Court) to the introduction to the record volume in this series he wrote, "When I accepted appointment to this Commission I knew little criminal law as I never practiced it . . . and some of my views have changed."

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