Word: blackmun
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That is Burger's diagnosis. Some staff personnel at the court privately offer three ad hominem explanations for the slowdown: the Chief Justice himself, Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall and Associate Justice Harry Blackmun. Burger's numerous off-court activities have cut sharply into his time for court work. Justice Marshall has been frequently ill this term, and the work of his law clerks on whom he has relied in the past for excellent writing has been uneven...
Frequent Forays. The prime offender, however, is seen to be Justice Blackmun, a slow writer and ponderous thinker, who not only weighs his opinions meticulously but writes them out in longhand. An extremely effective and popular public speaker, Blackmun has made frequent forays on the creamed chicken circuit all over the country this spring. Before tackling the court's work this week, he was off to Emory University in Georgia to accept yet another honorary degree. While the six other full-term Justices on the court have each published between ten and 13 majority opinions, Marshall has announced only...
...that lifted blanket bans on advertising prescription-drug prices. As part of its ruling, the court also made clear for the first time that the free flow of commercial information is generally protected by the First Amendment so long as the information is truthful and legitimate. Wrote Justice Harry Blackmun for the majority: "Advertising, however tasteless and excessive it may seem, is nonetheless dissemination of information...
Little Difference. Although Blackmun specifically declined to consider the decision's effect on other professions, the logic of the court's decision offers hope to consumer groups that have long been attacking the advertising bans in the legal and medical professions. Indeed, the sole dissenter from the decision, William Rehnquist, saw little difference between the public's right to know in advance the prices of drugs-and thus be able to shop for them-and its right to know the prices of legal, medical or other professional services for which standardized fees are charged...
...arithmetic underlying that gallows humor, reports TIME Supreme Court Correspondent David Beckwith, should be chilling to those who last week presented oral arguments asking the court to eliminate capital punishment finally and completely. For the remark assumed that Chief Justice Warren Burger and Justices Harry Blackmun, William Rehnquist and Lewis Powell, who voted against finding the death penalty cruel and unusual punishment in 1972, will continue to hold to that position. If new Justice John Paul Stevens joins them or if either Potter Stewart or Byron White switches sides, then the nine-year nationwide executions hiatus will be near...