Today in Supreme Court History: September 26, 1986

9/26/1986: Chief Justice Warren Burger resigns.

Chief Justice Warren Burger

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Matter of Disbarment of Mosely, 512 U.S. 1284 (decided September 26, 1994): Municipal judge convicted of extorting kickbacks from contractors, 810 F.2d 93 (though unlike the one time a judge shook me down, none of those victims was a broken, disabled man threatened with prison). He became a minister, and his web page mentions his criminal history. https://lawsoflifecourttv.com/fred-m-mosely-testimony/ Though he seems to stress being rejected by his peers (awww . . . ) and mentions the convictions as if it was something bad that just seemed to happen to him.

Matter of Disbarment of Cole, 512 U.S. 1285 (decided September 26, 1994): Convicted of large-scale bank fraud and money laundering, “issuance of over 82 fraudulent loans and 49 fraudulent cashier’s checks”. 989 F.2d 495.

Matter of Disbarment of Corces, 512 U.S. 1284 (decided September 26, 1994): Attorney with bright future lived the high life and borrowed client funds to pay personal bills. (As one of my law professors said, “That’s always how it starts.”) At first he paid it back. And then . . . https://www.tampabay .com/archive/1992/05/17/the-long-slide-of-charles-corces/

Matter of Disbarment of Karsch, 512 U.S. 1284 and Matter of Disbarment of Meyer, 512 U.S. 1284 (both decided September 26, 1994): These attorneys were disbarred for their non-attorney acts, in this case as CEO and Treasurer of a supermarket chain which defrauded manufactures via fraudulent coupons (give them credit for creativity), 197 A.D.2d 262, 200 A.D.2d 17

[apedad]

Judges and lawyers greedily breaking the law.

Greed is a huge bitch.

[apedad]

[Frank Drackman]

Funny bit in HR Haldemans “The Ends of Power” about a party at the Chief Justices home, the Chief couldn’t believe Mrs Haldeman, a Christian Scientist, didn’t drink, asking her if there was something wrong with the Wine “You don’t drink? Don’t drink WINE???!!” He remarked, then polished off most of a bottle. Never understood why he was always counted as a Pro-Life vote when he was in the majority of Roe v Wade (7-2, with 5 of them Repubiclown nominees)

Frank

[not guilty]

"Never understood why he was always counted as a Pro-Life vote when he was in the majority of Roe v Wade (7-2, with 5 of them Repubiclown nominees)"

According to Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong's The Brethren, Burger joined the majority in Roe v. Wade to prevent Justice Douglas from assigning the majority opinion to himself. Douglas's concurring opinion in the companion case of Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), offers a more robust defense of the constitutional rights of privacy, liberty and freedom of choice in the basic decisions of one's life respecting marriage, divorce, procreation, contraception, and the education and upbringing of children than Justice Blackmun's opinions of the Court in both cases.

[SMP0328]

So, Burger strategically planted the seeds of Roe's destruction by ostensibly joining the majority. Those seeds grew into Casey in 1992 and then achieved full growth in 2022 with Dobbs. He must have figured Blackmun's opinion would be of considerably lesser quality than that of Douglas. That's called playing the long game.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I think it's called a conspiracy theory.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“the education and upbringing of children”

The Court declared such a right back in the 1920s, Roe just added the part about killing children.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Burger often tried to avoid being in dissent because it provided him with less power to influence the result. As noted in another comment, that played some role here.

He had multiple votes against abortion rights in later cases. The vote ultimately went down to 5-4 and he was one of the four.

See, e.g., Thornburgh v. Amer. Coll. of Obstetricians, 476 U.S. 747 (1986),

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Chief Justice Burger resigned partially to the work of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution. He later called the current official view of the 2A a "fraud."

Burger received much criticism for his inability to lead the justices while appearing more successful in ceremonial roles.

Warren Burger was portrayed by in various films, including:

Muhammed Ali's Greatest Fight: Frank Langella
Roe v. Wade (2019): Jon Voight

There was also a 1980s t.v. movie with Amy Madigan and Holly Hunter. I watched it a long time back. It portrayed the argument to some extent. But, IMDB/Wikipedia doesn't list Burger.

[Dan Schiavetta]

“He later called the current official view of the 2A a “fraud.””

He was reflecting the overwhelming consensus of legal scholars and case law at the time.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

He came to prominence as a Nixonian “law-n-order” judge who was a big-government guy when it came to “fighting crime.” To his ilk, one way to show how tough on crime you were, was to limit private citizens’ right to guns.

Ask about the overwhelming legal consensus on marriage in Burger's time.

[Dan Schiavetta]

At the time people were more clear-headed on this issue, and less enamored of Rambo movies. No, gun ownership does not fight crime. In fact, public knowledge that you have a gun creates a greater likelihood of being a target. New York gun owners are on record as admitting this.

https://www.rcfp.org/journals/wake-journal-news-publishin/

[The Margrave of Azilia]

That's an article discussing how gun owners wanted their information private after a newspaper published a map of gun-holder permits.

In Burger's time, "the overwhelming consensus of legal scholars and case law" was that as far as the Constitution was concerned, marriage was the union of one man and one woman. Yet on this issue, surely you wouldn't tie the constitution's meaning to what a bunch of probably-biased eggheads think?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Should a newspaper publish a list of all Jews in the state at a time when Jews are being accused of being responsible for murder?

No, of course not.

Then why publish a list of gun-owners in the context of a crusade to blame gun-owners for murders?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Multiple people have challenged “progressives” who argued that Marcellus Williams was innocent of the crimes he was executed for. The three liberal justices would have stayed the execution.

I don’t know — per a Slate piece — if he is “almost certainly” innocent. I think among other things the evidence warranted not executing him. It’s a moot point now.

David French at NYT has an op-ed on the case. Is French a progressive too? I guess his endorsement of Harris would lead some people to say so. He labels himself an “evangelical conservative.”

Anyway, Alabama was successful the second time around, making four executions in four states this week.

[SRG2]

The conservative justices have adopted the view of Rehnquist and Scalia, that if due process was followed it's not their job to stop the execution because it's not unconstitutional. Evidently that someone very likely innocent may be executed does not shock what passes for their conscience.