Word: thurgood
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...vote was 8 to 1, and the majority opinion was cast in the sort of expansive language not usually found in the fractionated Supreme Court of late. "A criminal trial is fundamentally unfair," wrote Justice Thurgood Marshall, "if the state proceeds against an indigent defendant without making certain that he has access to the raw materials integral to the building of an effective defense." Specifically, said the court, defendants who plead not guilty by reason of insanity are entitled to a psychiatrist's help in preparing and presenting their cases...
...questions. Some observers see the San Antonio reversal as the latest assertion of independence by a Justice once considered to be a solid member of the conservative bloc. Last week's majority was made up of Centrists Blackmun, John Paul Stevens and Byron White plus Liberals William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall. "You can almost see them getting together and saying, 'Let's win one against the Gipper,' " says one leading court expert...
...Ronald Reagan is re-elected and the court loses either of its two aging liberals, William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, the conservative drift could become a sea change. The right to abortion, affirmative action for blacks and women, the ban on school prayer, many procedural safeguards for criminal suspects and free-speech rights would be vulnerable to weakening, if not outright reversal. Says University of Minnesota Law School Associate Professor Daniel Farber: "We could basically end up with the law looking a lot like it did before 1954. We could expect a much more conservative court, a Warren Court...
...person would appear on either Reagan's or Mondale's list: Amalya Kearse, 47, a federal appeals judge who is both black and female ("a two-fer," says a Reaganaut). Kearse would surely be in contention if Thurgood Marshall, the only black Justice, stepped down. But Kearse has one drawback that could discourage political patrons: she is neither predictably liberal nor predictably conservative...
Writing in dissent, Justice Thurgood Marshall found this reasoning "difficult to take seriously." Marshall stated that Rehnquist seemed to be saying that incarceration in often dangerous juvenile jails is comparable to parental supervision at home. Marshall was concerned about the breadth of the New York law, which allows a family-court judge to hold a child in preventive detention no matter what his crime or prior record...