Word: benching
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...private conference room to begin the hard work of constructing a decision?one for which the present court will be long remembered. During Warren Burger's five years as Chief Justice, the court has seemed unable to establish a firm identity or to move with consistent direction. The Burger bench contrasts sharply with its activist predecessor, and the difference was being vividly recalled last week because of the death of former Chief Justice Earl Warren...
Part of the reason for the zigzag effect is that Burger has been less adept than Warren was in building consensus?or even promoting amity?among the nine jurists. Stories about bickering behind the bench have been surfacing regularly. Promoting harmony would not be easy for any Chief Justice now because of the court's delicate ideological balance. There are three consistent conservatives (Burger, Blackmun, Rehnquist), three liberals (Douglas, Brennan, Marshall) and three swing men who are often unpredictable (White, Stewart, Powell...
...Warren was not an ideologue or a radical. Rather he was a pragmatist who came to the bench with no preconceived vision or grand design, no strongly held or elaborately developed theory of society or even the law itself. He did right as he learned to see the right; the key word was learned...
Union Member. Warren's trademark on the bench was to interrupt a counsel's learned argument citing precedent and book with the simple, almost naive question: "Yes, but is it fair?" He believed that social justice was more important than legalisms: "You sit up there, and you see the whole gamut of human nature. Even if the case being argued involves only a little fellow and $50, it involves justice. That's what is important...
...School, Stern headed the investigation of the Malcolm X murder case as assistant district attorney in New York City. It led to three convictions. In 1973, after only twelve years in law instead of the usual minimum of 15, he was appointed by President Nixon to the federal bench in Newark...