Word: blackmun
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...Supreme Court clearly intended to forestall just this kind of confrontation by its 1973 decision in the case of Roe vs. Wade. Speaking for the 7-to-2 majority, Associate Justice Harry Blackmun ruled that women have a constitutional right to an abortion for at least the first six months of pregnancy. It was bitterly attacked by some legal scholars as well as pro-life advocates, but the decision has basically remained the law of the land despite Supreme Court decisions that subsequently nibbled away at the hard edges of the ruling. Last week, for example, in a case involving...
...probably the most ardent and forceful pro-lifer in the House. Their bill is designed to take advantage of a section of the 1973 decision in which the Supreme Court, with becoming modesty, said it was unable "to resolve the difficult question of when life begins." Wrote Justice Blackmun: "When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer." The court...
...sentence would violate the Constitution's prohibition against double jeopardy. But last week the Supreme Court ruled, 5 to 4, that the Constitution does not go that far. It prevents Government appeals of actual verdicts, the Justices ruled, but not of sentences. The decision, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, seemed to some experts to cut two ways. While it may comfort hard-liners by giving prosecutors a second chance to obtain a stiff sentence, its primary effect may be to further a movement toward more uniform sentencing that is backed by many liberals...
...trying for a stiffer sentence, did the Government run afoul of the Fifth Amendment's guarantee that no one will "be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb"? No, said Blackmun. He maintained that the object of the double-jeopardy clause was to spare a successful defendant the "ordeal" of successive trials. A judge's imposition of sentence, wrote Blackmun, lacks the "finality" of an acquittal, and thus may be altered...
Judge Robert E. Keeton of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts and former Torah Professor of Law, and Judge Amalya Kearse of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, joined Blackmun in hearing the case...