Word: burger
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...often announces that he is ''inclined'' to vote a certain way; sometimes he reserves judgment; occasionally he changes his vote. In one case, Burger voted five times at different stages of discussion: twice for, twice against and one "pass." On Burger's tombstone, a Justice once joked, should be carved the inscription, "I think I'll pass for the moment...
...Burger had three more Nixon appointees as colleagues on the court: Harry A Blackmun, Lewis F. Powell Jr and William H. Rehnquist. Liberals warned of "an emerging Nixon majority"; indeed, in the early to mid-'70s, the Burger Court, with the Nixon appointees often voting as a group, began chipping away at Warren Court precedents such as Miranda and the rule excluding illegally obtained evidence. But then the bloc of Nixon appointees began to break up. In 1972-73 the quartet voted together three out of four times. By 1977-78 they were all of the same mind...
...surprising the Presidents who appoint them. Earl Warren did not turn out to be the man of moderate Republican views that Dwight Eisenhower expected him to be. The Nixon appointees have grown during their years on the Supreme Court; not surprisingly, they have also grown apart. Chief Justice Burger himself maintains that building an ideological bloc was not on his mind when he came to the court, whatever Nixon may have intended...
...tried to strike a balance on reverse discrimination and retrenched slightly on criminal rights. It clearly does not have the moral vision of the Warren Court, particularly in its attitude toward the havenots, but it certainly is not the conservative bastion that Nixon hoped to create. A decade after Burger became Chief Justice, the Supreme Court is the Burger Court in name only. In part, that is a reflection on Warren Burger and the way he has performed his role. In part, it lies in the peculiar nature of the institution and the complex interaction of the nine individuals...
...conference, the Chief begins the discussion of each case by describing the issues as well as his own views. Warren was known for declaring his opinions clearly and strongly at the outset, cutting through legalisms to ask persistently, ''Is it right? Is it fair?'' Burger is more tentative. Some of his colleagues wonder whether he is always adequately prepared for conference; when he states the issues, he sometimes seems to be reading them for the first time from a memo written by his clerks...