warrant In law, authorization in writing empowering a person to per¬ form an act or execute an office. Arrest warrants are necessary (except in certain circumstances) for an arrest to be considered legal. Search war¬ rants entitle the holder to enter and search a property. Both are classes of judicial warrants. To obtain them, a complainant must provide an affida¬ vit setting forth facts sufficient to satisfy the belief that a crime has been committed and that the accused is the guilty party (or, in the case of the search warrant, that the place to be searched will yield the expected evi¬ dence). Nonjudicial warrants include tax warrants (which provide the authority to collect taxes) and land warrants (which entitle the holder to a specific tract of public land).
Warrau \wo-'rau\ or Guarauno Group of nomadic South American Indians who in modern times inhabit the swampy Orinoco River delta in Venezuela and areas eastward into Guyana. Some live in Suriname. They subsist mainly by fishing, hunting, and gathering, though they practice some agriculture in the drier regions. The Mauritia palm is a staple: they make a fermented drink from its sap and bread from its pith, eat its fruit, and fashion its fibre into clothing and hammocks. Their priestly ceremonies and complex social classes are unusual among hunters and gatherers.
Warren Town (pop., 2000:
11,360), eastern Rhode Island, U.S.
Located near Providence, it was settled in 1632 and was originally part of Massachusetts. In 1747 Rhode Island annexed it. It was pil¬ laged and burned by the British dur¬ ing the American Revolution. It is now a summer resort.
Warren, Earl (b. March 19, 1891,
Los Angeles, Calif., U.S.—d. July 9,
1974, Washington, D.C.) U.S. jurist and politician. He graduated from law school at the University of Cali¬ fornia, then served as a county dis¬ trict attorney (1925-39), state
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2030 I Warren ► Warsaw Uprising
attorney general (1939—43), and governor of the state for three terms (1943-53). He was criticized for interning Japanese citizens in camps dur¬ ing World War II. His only electoral defeat came in 1948, when he ran for vice president on the Republican ticket with Thomas Dewey. In 1953 Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower appointed Warren chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, a post he held until 1969. This was a period of sweeping changes in U.S. constitutional law. Under his leadership the court proved to be strongly liberal. Among Warren’s notable opinions are those in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), which held that segration in public education was unconstitutional; Reynolds v. Sims (1964), which declared the “one man, one vote” principle requiring state legislative reapportionment (1964); and Miranda v. Arizona (1966), which held that police must inform an arrestee of his right to remain silent and to have counsel present (appointed for him if he is indigent) and that a confession obtained in defi¬ ance of these requirements is inadmissible in court. After the assassination of Pres. John F. Kennedy, he chaired the Warren Commission.
Warren, Harry orig. Salvatore Guaragna (b. Dec. 24, 1893, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.—d. Sept. 22, 1981, Los Angeles, Calif.) U.S. song¬ writer. The youngest of 12 children, Warren was self-taught musically. He toured with brass bands and carnivals from age 15. After a few years as a song plugger in Tin Pan Alley, he began contributing tunes to Broadway musicals, including “You’re My Everything” and “I Found a Million Dol¬ lar Baby in a Five-and-Ten-Cent Store.” In 1932 he moved to Hollywood, where he collaborated on films such as Gold Diggers of1933 (1933), 42nd Street (1933), Down Argentine Way (1940), and Sun Valley Serenade (1941; with “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”), and he received Academy Awards for the songs “Lullaby of Broadway,” “You’ll Never Know,” and “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.” Between 1935 and 1950 he wrote more top-10 hit songs than any other songwriter.
Warren, Joseph (b. June 11, 1741, Roxbury, Mass.—d. June 17, 1775, Bunker Hill, Mass.) American Revolutionary leader. He was a physician in Boston. He was active in patriot causes after passage of the Stamp Act (1765) and helped draft the Massachusetts colonial grievances called the Suffolk Resolves (1774). As a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Public Safety, he sent Paul Revere on his ride to Lexington. He was made a major general in the Revolutionary army and died in the Battle of Bunker Hill.
Warren, Mercy Otis orig. Mercy Otis (b. Sept. 25, 1728, Barnsta¬ ble, Mass.—d. Oct. 19, 1814, Plymouth, Mass., U.S.) U.S. poet, drama¬ tist, and historian. The sister of James Otis, she received no formal education but nevertheless became a woman of letters and a friend and correspondent of leading political figures. She commented on the issues of the day in political satires, plays, and pamphlets. Though a defender of the American Revolution, she opposed the Constitution, arguing that power should rest with the states. Her most significant work, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution (3 vol., 1805), covered the period from 1765 to 1800.
Warren, Robert Penn (b. April 24, 1905, Guthrie, Ky., U.S.—d. Sept. 15, 1989, Stratton, Vt.) U.S. novelist, poet, and critic. Warren attended Vanderbilt University, where he joined the Fugitives, a group of poets who advocated the agrarian way of life in the South. Later he taught at several colleges and universities and helped found and edit The South¬ ern Review (1935-42), possibly the most influential American literary magazine of the time. His writings often treat moral dilemmas in a South beset by the erosion of its traditional rural values. His best-known novel is All the King’s Men (1946, Pulitzer Prize; film, 1949). The short-story volume The Circus in the Attic (1948) contains the notable “Blackberry Winter.” He won Pulitzer prizes for poetry in 1958 and 1979 and became the first U.S. poet laureate in 1986.
Warren Commission officially President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (1963-64) Group appointed by Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the circum¬ stances surrounding John F. Kennedy’s slaying and the shooting of his assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. It was chaired by Earl Warren and included two U.S. senators, two U.S. congressmen, and two former public offi¬ cials. After months of investigation, it reported that Kennedy was killed by Oswald’s rifle shots from the Texas School Book Depository and that Oswald’s murder by Jack Ruby two days later was not part of a conspiracy to assassinate Kennedy. Its findings were later questioned in a number of books and articles and in a special congressional committee report in 1979, though no conclusive contradictory evidence was found.
Warring States period Chinese Zhangou (475-221 bc) In Chi¬ nese history, a period in which small feuding kingdoms or fiefdoms struggled for supremacy. The period was dominated by seven or more small feuding Chinese kingdoms. It was the age of Confucian thinkers Mencius and Xunzi, the time when many of the government institutions and cultural patterns that would characterize China for the next 2,000 years were established. The term Warring States (Sengoku) is also used in Japan for a period (1482-1558) during the Muromachi period that was marked by almost constant warfare among rival daimyo seeking to con¬ solidate and increase their landholdings.