'Wild Bill' rides again: A life of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

William O. Douglas served on the U.S. Supreme Court for 36 years, longer than any other justice in American history. He wrote the most opinions for the court, issued the most dissents, wrote more books, married more women, endured more divorces and was threatened with impeachment more often than any other justice before or since. Douglas left a legacy that is difficult to imagine, let alone catalog.

Bruce Allen Murphy's magnificent new biography, "Wild Bill: The Legend and Life of William O. Douglas," rises to the formidable challenge posed to anyone who would attempt the task. Fifteen years in the making, it is the first truly comprehensive biography of the justice — and one well worth waiting for.

Douglas' life, as he told it, was a stirring victory against the odds. According to Douglas, he suffered polio as a child and regained his ability to walk only through the dedication of his mother and his own steel-eyed grit in hiking the Yakima foothills. He claimed to have been raised in a poor family, to have ridden the rails east to law school at Yale, to have served in World War I, and to have graduated second in his class from law school.

Unfortunately, much of the story isn't exactly accurate, as Murphy's biography points out, backed up by hundreds of interviews and a close review of voluminous papers only recently made public.

Douglas did suffer a mysterious illness as a child, but it was never diagnosed as polio then or later. Douglas' early years in Yakima were challenging, but his widowed mother was hardly destitute. He did ride a "sheep train" to law school, but it was a comfortable passage and hardly counts as riding the rails. Douglas served his country well and long on the court, but he never served in the military, apart from a few weeks of volunteer service in the Students' Army Training Corps. And, brilliant as he was, he was not second in his class at Yale Law School.

And the sad part is this: None of this myth-making is necessary to recognize Douglas' extraordinary achievements. Douglas was plainly a brilliant man who succeeded against daunting odds, rising from an obscure (if not entirely poor) upbringing in Yakima. He gained fame teaching at Yale Law School and was appointed by then-President Franklin Roosevelt to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Widely praised by New Deal liberals for his dramatic work in challenging securities fraud, he became an FDR favorite, playing a regular game of poker with the president. Twice he was nearly nominated for the vice presidency. His record hardly needs exaggeration.

He was barely more than 40 years old when he was appointed to the Supreme Court. His service on the court was remarkable by any measure, and his opinions and dissents identified issues that even today continue to resonate — the right to privacy (and later abortion) was founded almost entirely on Douglas' reasoning in early cases. He broke ground in environmental cases, in free-speech cases, and in search-and-seizure cases. But he chaffed on the court, never entirely happy to be so far from the fray, and frustrated that his hidden presidential ambitions had never been satisfied.

Although Douglas gained fame on the East Coast, he always considered Yakima his true home. He spent his summers at his Goose Prairie cabin, roaming far and wide among his beloved Cascade Mountains. Douglas held hearings in the Yakima County courthouse and once even heard out lawyers with an emergency petition beside a campfire at a high-mountain camp (making them return the following day for the ruling). His spirit still roams the Cascades, with his name often inscribed in trail registers by hikers as an informal tribute to "The Judge."

Despite his remarkable professional achievements, Douglas' personal life was a disaster. Douglas had two children to whom he was a cold and distant father. Worse, he relentlessly cheated on his wife and chased women constantly, which ultimately led to his first divorce. He married and divorced two other women before his fourth, and last, marriage to Cathy Douglas. She was 23 and he was 67, leading one Goose Prairie observer to comment that the justice just might have "overstocked his pasture this time." He was also brutal on his office staff, famous for his harsh criticism of their work.

Douglas was threatened with impeachment four times, most seriously by President Nixon. Informed by the attorney general of the impending impeachment effort, Douglas responded: "Well, Mr. Attorney General, you'd better saddle your horses." Both efforts ended in failure.

Even trimmed down to a more historically accurate portrait, William O. Douglas' accomplishments were staggering. "Wild Bill" is an outstanding review of Douglas' life, legacy, and legend. It's likely to remain the definitive Douglas biography for years to come and is, indeed, a fitting tribute to Washington's most famous son.

Kevin J. Hamilton is a Seattle lawyer.