| Harry Andrew Blackmun | |
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| In office June 9, 1970 – August 4, 1994 |
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| Nominated by | Richard Nixon |
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| Preceded by | Abe Fortas |
| Succeeded by | Stephen Breyer |
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| Born | November 12, 1908 Nashville, Illinois |
| Died | March 4, 1999 (aged 90) Arlington, Virginia |
Harry Andrew Blackmun (November 12, 1908 – March 4, 1999) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994. Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States Events 53 - Roman Emperor Nero marries Claudia Octavia 62 - Claudia Octavia commits Year 1970 ( MCMLXX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 70 - The Destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans. Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) Abraham Fortas ( June 19, 1910 – April 5, 1982) was a US Supreme Court associate justice. Stephen Gerald Breyer (born August 15 1938 is an American Attorney and Jurist. Events 764 - Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, for fifteen days Year 1908 ( MCMVIII) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year Nashville is a city in Washington County, Illinois, in the United States. The State of Illinois ( roughly ill-i-NOY is a state of the United States of America, the 21st to be admitted to the Union. Events 51 - Nero, later to become Roman Emperor, is given the title Princeps iuventutis (head of the youth Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) Events 764 - Tibetan troops occupy Chang'an, the capital of the Chinese Tang Dynasty, for fifteen days Year 1908 ( MCMVIII) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year Events 51 - Nero, later to become Roman Emperor, is given the title Princeps iuventutis (head of the youth Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States Year 1970 ( MCMLXX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) He is best known as the author of the majority opinion in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, overturning laws restricting abortion in the United States and declaring abortion protected under a constitutional right to privacy. Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. Roe v Wade, 410 US 113 (1973 is a controversial United States Supreme Court case that resulted in a Landmark decision regarding An The United States of America —commonly referred to as the An
Contents |
Early years and professional career
Harry Blackmun was born in Nashville, Illinois, and grew up in Dayton's Bluff, a working-class neighborhood in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Nashville is a city in Washington County, Illinois, in the United States. Dayton's Bluff is a neighborhood located on the east side of the Mississippi in the southeast part Saint Paul ( abbreviated St Paul) is the capital and second most populous city in the U He attended Harvard College on scholarship, earning a bachelor's degree in mathematics summa cum laude Phi Beta Kappa in 1929 . Harvard College is the undergraduate section and oldest school of Harvard University, a Private university in the United States founded in 1636 by the Massachusetts A bachelor's degree is usually an Undergraduate Academic degree awarded for a course or major that generally lasts for three four or in some cases and Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and The Phi Beta Kappa Society is an academic Honor society with the mission of "fostering and recognizing excellence" in the Undergraduate Liberal arts While at Harvard, Blackmun joined Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity and sang with the Harvard Glee Club. Lambda Chi Alpha ( ΛΧΑ) headquartered in Indianapolis Indiana, is a member of the North-American Interfraternity Conference (NIC and one of the largest The Harvard Glee Club is a 60-voice all-male choral ensemble at Harvard University. He attended Harvard Law School (among his professors there was Felix Frankfurter), graduating in 1932. Harvard Law School (also known as Harvard Law or HLS) is one of the professional Graduate schools of Harvard University. Felix Frankfurter ( November 15, 1882 – February 22, 1965) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court He served in a variety of positions including private counsel, law clerk, and adjunct faculty at the University of Minnesota and the St Paul College of Law (now called William Mitchell College of Law). The University of Minnesota Twin Cities ( U of M or The U) is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system. William Mitchell College of Law is a Law school located in St Blackmun's practice as an attorney at the law firm now known as Dorsey & Whitney focused in its early years on taxation, trusts and estates, and civil litigation. Dorsey & Whitney LLP (or "Dorsey" is a large law firm, with close to 700 lawyers and 850 staff located in 19 offices in the United States, Canada The law of trusts and estates is generally considered the body of Law which governs the management of personal affairs and the Disposition of Property of Civil law, as opposed to Criminal law, refers to that branch of Law dealing with disputes between Individuals and/or Organizations, in which He married Dorothy Clark in 1941 and had three daughters with her, Nancy, Sally, and Susan. Between 1950 and 1959 Blackmun served as resident counsel for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Mayo Clinic is a Non-profit medical practice Its headquarters the Mayo Medical School and its research facilities are in Rochester Minnesota in Rochester is a City in the US state of Minnesota and is the County seat of Olmsted County.
Appellate bench
President Dwight David Eisenhower appointed Blackmun to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on 4 November 1959. Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (October 14 1890 – March 28 1969 was President of the United States from 1953 until 1961 and a five-star general The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit is a federal court with Appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following Events 1333 - Flood of the Arno River, causing massive damage in Florence as recorded by the Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani The year 1959 ( MCMLIX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Blackmun's opinions on the circuit court level were mainly tax-related, although he wrote influential opinions about other matters, including Jackson v. Bishop (1968), which was probably the first appellate opinion to declare that physical abuse of prisoners was cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution.
Blackmun's tenure on the Supreme Court
Blackmun was nominated for the Supreme Court by Richard Nixon on 4 April 1970, and was confirmed by the United States Senate later the same year. Events 1581 - Francis Drake completes a circumnavigation of the world and is knighted by Elizabeth I. Year 1970 ( MCMLXX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The United States Senate is the Upper house of the bicameral United States Congress, the Lower house being the House of Representatives His confirmation followed contentious battles over two previous, failed nominations forwarded by Nixon in 1969-1970, those of Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell. Clement Furman Haynsworth Jr ( October 30, 1912 – November 22, 1989) was a United States judge and an unsuccessful nominee for George Harrold Carswell ( December 22, 1919 – July 13, 1992) was a Federal Judge and an unsuccessful nominee to the United States Blackmun's nomination sailed through the Senate with no opposition on 17 May 1970. Events 1521 - Edward Stafford 3rd Duke of Buckingham, is executed for Treason. Year 1970 ( MCMLXX) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link shows full calendar of the Gregorian calendar.
Early years on the Supreme Court
Blackmun, a lifelong Republican, was generally expected to adhere to a conservative interpretation of the Constitution. The Constitution of the United States of America is the supreme Law of the United States. The Court's Chief Justice at the time, Warren Burger, who had been a long-time friend of Blackmun's and for whom Blackmun served as best man at his wedding, had recommended Blackmun for the job to President Richard M. Nixon. Warren Earl Burger ( September 17 1907 – June 25 1995) was Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986 Participants in wedding ceremonies, also known as the wedding party, include the bride and groom (or bridegroom) the maid of honor The two were often referred to as the "Minnesota Twins" (a reference to the baseball team, the Minnesota Twins) because of their common history in Minnesota and because they so often voted together. The Minnesota Twins are a professional baseball team based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Indeed, in 1972 Blackmun joined Burger and the other two Nixon appointees to the Court in dissenting from the Furman v. Georgia decision that invalidated all capital punishment laws then in force in the United States, and in 1976 he voted to reinstate the death penalty in 1976's Gregg v. Georgia, even the mandatory death penalty statutes, although in both instances he indicated his personal opinion of its shortcomings as a policy. Furman v Georgia, was a United States Supreme Court decision that ruled on the requirement for a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty Capital punishment, the death penalty or execution, is the Killing of a person by judicial process as Punishment. Gregg v Georgia, Proffitt v Florida, Jurek v Texas, Woodson v Blackmun, however, insisted his political opinions should have no bearing on the death penalty's constitutionality.
Initially Blackmun was slightly less conservative than Warren Burger. In the 1971-72 term he voted with Burger in over 90% of the cases and William Rehnquist in slightly under 90% of the cases. He was even slightly more conservative than Lewis Powell in their first year on the court together. Lewis Franklin Powell Jr ( September 19, 1907 &ndash August 25, 1998) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the
Blackmun and abortion
A turning point came in 1973. Year 1973 ( MCMLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. That year the Court's opinion in the case of Roe v. Wade which he authored was handed down. Roe v Wade, 410 US 113 (1973 is a controversial United States Supreme Court case that resulted in a Landmark decision regarding Roe invalidated a Texas statute making it a felony to administer an abortion in most circumstances. In Common law legal systems a felony is a serious Crime, often contrasted with a Misdemeanor. An The Court's judgment in the companion case of Doe v. Bolton held a less restrictive Georgia law to be similarly unconstitutional. Doe v Bolton, 410 US 179 ( 1973) was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court overturning the Abortion Both decisions were based on the right to privacy enunciated in Griswold v. Connecticut, and remain the primary basis for the constitutional right to abortion in the United States. Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively Griswold v Connecticut, 381 US 479 ( 1965) was a Landmark case in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the Roe caused an immediate uproar, and Blackmun's opinion made him a target for criticism by opponents of abortion, receiving voluminous negative mail and death threats over the case.
In response, Blackmun became a passionate advocate for abortion rights, often delivering speeches and lectures promoting Roe v. Wade as essential to women's equality and criticizing Roe's critics. On the bench, he always voted to strike down laws interfering with women receiving abortions and filed emotional separate opinions in 1989's Webster v. Reproductive Health Services and 1992's Planned Parenthood v. Casey, warning that Roe was in jeopardy: "I am 83 years old. Webster v Reproductive Health Services, 492 US 490 ( 1989) was a United States Supreme Court decision on July 3, 1989 Planned Parenthood v Casey, 505 US 833 ( 1992) was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in which the Constitutionality I cannot remain on this Court forever, and when I do step down, the confirmation process for my successor well may focus on the issue before us today. That, I regret, may be exactly where the choice between the two worlds will be made. "
Transition to the left
The controversial decision had a profound effect on him, and afterwards, he gradually began to drift away from the influence of Chief Justice Warren Burger and Associate Justice William Rehnquist to increasingly side with liberal Justice William J. Brennan in finding constitutional protection for unenumerated individual rights. The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English Warren Earl Burger ( September 17 1907 – June 25 1995) was Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986 Associate Justice or Associate Judge is the title for a member of a judicial panel who is not the Chief Justice. William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1 1924 – September 3 2005 was an American lawyer, jurist, and a political figure who served as an Associate Justice William Joseph Brennan Jr ( April 25, 1906 &ndash July 24, 1997) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the For example, Blackmun wrote a blistering dissent to the Court's opinion in 1986's Bowers v. Hardwick, denying constitutional protection to homosexual sodomy (Burger wrote a concurring opinion in Bowers in which he said, "To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching. Bowers v Hardwick,, was a United States Supreme Court decision that upheld the constitutionality of a Georgia Sodomy law that criminalized ") Burger and Blackmun drifted apart, and as the years passed, their lifelong friendship degenerated into a hostile and contentious relationship. In Burger's last year on the court he and Blackmun voted together in about 50% of the cases while Blackmun voted with William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall over 90% of the time. William Joseph Brennan Jr ( April 25, 1906 &ndash July 24, 1997) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Thurgood Marshall ( July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American Jurist and the first African American
Blackmun's judicial philosophy increasingly seemed guided by Roe, even in areas where Roe was not directly applicable. His concurring opinion in 1981's Michael M. v. Superior Court, a case that upheld statutory rape laws that applied only to men but did not implicate Roe or abortion, nonetheless included extensive citation of the Court's recent abortion cases. [1]
Later years on the bench: Blackmun and the death penalty
Blackmun is widely considered to have moved to the left over the years, but he himself felt that the Court changed around him, growing more conservative with the elevation of William Rehnquist to Chief Justice and the replacement of the last of the Warren Court justices. William Hubbs Rehnquist (October 1 1924 – September 3 2005 was an American lawyer, jurist, and a political figure who served as an Associate Justice Earl Warren ( March 19, 1891 July 9, 1974) was the 14th Chief Justice of the United States and the only person ever elected thrice
Still, Blackmun undoubtedly changed his views on many issues. For example, Blackmun, despite his stated personal 'abhorrence' for the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia, voted to uphold mandatory death penalty statutes at issue in 1976's Roberts v. Furman v Georgia, was a United States Supreme Court decision that ruled on the requirement for a degree of consistency in the application of the death penalty Louisiana and Woodson v. North Carolina, even though these laws would have automatically imposed the death penalty on anyone found guilty of first-degree murder. But on February 22, 1994, less than two months before announcing his retirement, Blackmun announced that he now saw the death penalty as always and in all circumstances unconstitutional by issuing a dissent from the Court's refusal to hear the relatively routine death penalty case of Callins v. Events 1495 - King Charles VIII of France enters Naples to claim the city's throne Year 1994 ( MCMXCIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display full 1994 Gregorian calendar) Collins, declaring that "[f]rom this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. " Subsequently, adopting the practice begun by Justices Brennan and Marshall, he issued in every death penalty case presented to the Court, a brief statement citing and reiterating his Callins dissent. William Joseph Brennan Jr ( April 25, 1906 &ndash July 24, 1997) was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Thurgood Marshall ( July 2, 1908 – January 24, 1993) was an American Jurist and the first African American As Linda Greenhouse and others have reported, Blackmun's law clerks prepared what would become the Callins dissent well in advance of the case coming before the Court; Blackmun's papers indicate that work began on the dissent in the summer of 1993, and in a memo preserved in Blackmun's papers, the clerk writing the dissent wrote Blackmun that "[t]his is a very personal dissent, and I have struggled to adopt your 'voice' to the best of my ability. Linda Greenhouse (b January 9, 1947, New York City) is a Pulitzer Prize winning Reporter who covered the United States I have tried to put myself in your shoes and write a dissent that would reflect the wisdom you have gained, and the frustration you have endured, as a result of twenty years of enforcing the death penalty on this Court. " Blackmun and his clerks then sought an appropriate case to serve as a "vehicle for [the] dissent," and settled on Callins. [1] (That the case found the dissent, rather than the more traditional relationship of the dissent relating to the case, is underscored by the opinion's almost total omission of reference to the case it ostensibly addressed: Callins is relegated to a supernumerary in his own appeal, being mentioned but five times in a forty-two paragraph opinion - three times within the first two paragraphs, and twice in footnote 2. [2]).
In his emotional dissent in 1989's DeShaney v. Winnebago County, rejecting the constitutional liability of the state of Wisconsin for four-year-old Joshua DeShaney, who was beaten until brain-damaged by his abusive father, Blackmun famously opined, "Poor Joshua!" In his dissent in 1993's Herrera v. Collins, where the Court refused to find a constitutional right for convicted prisoners to introduce new evidence of "actual innocence" for purposes of obtaining federal relief, Blackmun argued in a section joined by no other justice that "The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder. DeShaney v Winnebago County was a case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on February 22 1989 Herrera v Collins,, is a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States (in a 6 to 3 decision ruled that a claim that the Eighth Amendment's ban "
Like Justice Byron White, Blackmun was amenable to granting certiorari to most petitions that crossed his desk (indeed, he wrote numerous dissents from denial of cert). Byron Raymond White ( June 8, 1917 &ndash April 15, 2002) won fame both as a football Running back and as an associate justice of Certiorari (ˌsɚʃioʊ('rɛri 'rɑri is a legal term in Roman, English, Philippine and American law referring to a type of Writ At least partially as a result of White and Blackmun's retirements, the number of cases heard each session of the Court declined steeply. In the 1970s and early 1980s, it was not unusual for the Court to decide upwards of 150 cases a term, but by the late 1990s, the Court was typically deciding around 80 cases per term.
Post-Supreme Court
Blackmun announced his retirement from the Supreme Court in April 1994, four months before he officially left the bench. By then, he had become the court's most liberal justice. In his place, President Bill Clinton nominated Stephen Breyer who was confirmed by the Senate 87-9. William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton (born William Jefferson Blythe III, August 19 1946 served as the forty-second President of the United States Stephen Gerald Breyer (born August 15 1938 is an American Attorney and Jurist.
On February 22, 1999, Blackmun fell in his home and broke his hip. Events 1495 - King Charles VIII of France enters Naples to claim the city's throne Year 1999 ( MCMXCIX) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1999 Gregorian calendar) The next day, he underwent hip replacement surgery at Arlington Hospital in Arlington, Virginia, but he never fully recovered. Ten days later, on March 4, he died at 1 a. Events 51 - Nero, later to become Roman Emperor, is given the title Princeps iuventutis (head of the youth m. from complications following the procedure. He was buried five days later at Arlington National Cemetery. Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington Virginia, is a military cemetery in the United States, established during the American Civil War His wife died several years later on July 13, 2006, at the age of 95 and was buried next to him. Events 1174 - William I of Scotland, a key rebel in the Revolt of 1173-1174, is captured at Alnwick by forces loyal to Year 2006 ( MMVI) was a Common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar.
Five years after his death, in 2004, at Blackmun's will, the Library of Congress released his voluminous files. The Library of Congress is the De facto National library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress Blackmun had kept all the documents from every case, notes the Justices passed between themselves, ten percent of the mail he received, and numerous other documents. And after Blackmun announced his retirement from the Court, he recorded a 38-hour oral history with one of his former law clerks, Yale University professor Harold Koh which was also released. Biography A Korean-American native of Boston, he graduated in 1971 from the New Haven prep school Hopkins, graduated In it, he discusses his thoughts on everything from his important Court cases to the Supreme Court piano, though some Supreme Court experts such as David Garrow have cast doubt on the accuracy of some of Blackmun's recollections, especially his thoughts on the Court's deliberations on Roe v. David J Garrow (born 1953 is an American historian and author of the book Bearing the Cross Martin Luther King Jr Wade.
Based on these papers, Linda Greenhouse of The New York Times wrote Becoming Justice Blackmun. Linda Greenhouse (b January 9, 1947, New York City) is a Pulitzer Prize winning Reporter who covered the United States
Blackmun is the only Supreme Court justice to have played one in a motion picture. In 1997, he portrayed Justice Joseph Story in the Steven Spielberg film Amistad. Joseph Story ( September 18, 1779 &ndash September 10, 1845) was an American Lawyer and Jurist who served on Amistad is a 1997 Steven Spielberg Film based on the true story of a slave mutiny that took place aboard a ship of the same name in
References
- Clinton, Bill (2005). My Life. Vintage. ISBN 1-4000-3003-X.
- Harry Blackmun profile, NNDB.
- Greenhouse, Linda (2005). Becoming Justice Blackmun. Henry Holt. ISBN 0-8050-8057-0.
- Wrightsman, Lawrence S. , and Justin R. La Mort (2005). Why Do Supreme Court Justices Succeed or Fail? Harry Blackmun as an Example. Missouri Law Review 70.
- Yarbrough, Tinsley. Harry A. Blackmun: The Outsider Justice. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195141237.
External links
- Excerpt from Blackmun's Callins opinion, and Justice Scalia's response
- NPR series on Justice Blackmun's Files
- Transcript: The Justice Harry A. Blackmun Oral History Project
- ProCon.org's Justice Blackmun Bio
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by John Benjamin Sanborn |
Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit 1959-1970 |
Succeeded by Donald Roe Ross |
| Preceded by Abe Fortas |
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States June 9, 1970 – August 3, 1994 |
Succeeded by Stephen Breyer |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Blackmun, Harry Andrew |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1970 to 1994 |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 12, 1908 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Nashville, Illinois |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 4, 1999 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Arlington, Virginia |
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