Word: blackmun
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...court starts its 180th year next week, however, many observers look to Nixon's second appointee, Justice Harry A. Blackmun. A private, studious, moderate jurist of 61, Blackmun could emerge as the court's pivotal figure. He may have the deciding vote in many important cases. With Republican appointees in the majority, suggests University of Chicago Law Professor Philip Kurland, a leading court watcher, the Burger Court may steer slightly away from the Warren Court's judicial activism-but hardly toward the conservatism that "Vice President Agnew and Attorney General Mitchell are seeking to create...
...Plunge. Blackmun spent the summer at home in Rochester, Minn., pondering cases to come before the court this term. Rarely have the Justices faced a bigger backlog of tough issues. Taking an icy plunge next week, they will hear at least eight hours of arguments in six desegregation cases, four of which involve the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in North Carolina. A major issue, is to what extent a federal court may require busing or other methods to eliminate all-black schools. Not only may the court's decision affect cities in the North as well as the South...
Immediately after the school arguments, the court will listen to attorneys challenge the constitutionality of court procedures in capital-punishment cases. When raised last term, the questions were avoided by the Justices who were closely divided. Because Blackmun had written the lower-court decision, he could not vote. Now the issues arise in two new cases, and the junior Justice, who is known to have doubts about the imposition of the death penalty, may be in a position to curb it. The court's next issue is just as tricky: whether or not Congress had the authority to lower...
...Blackmun may also cast the tie-breaking vote in a series of cases that will illuminate the constitutional limits of protest and dissent. While the Warren Court largely avoided the chore of setting new First Amendment rules, suggests Yale's Alexander Bickel, events may now force the court to face such issues...
...attorneys last week, the Justices might conceivably be forced to set up their own military-affairs office, supervising troop withdrawals and dealing diplomatically with North Viet Nam. The court may well avoid the politically charged Massachusetts case. But clearly the Justices will be kept busy without it. Mr. Justice Blackmun, no doubt, would concur in that opinion...