Great Men as Supreme Court Justices: Leadership and Cohesion in the Warren and Burger Courts.

1
Great Men as Supreme Court Justices Leadership
and Cohesion in the Warren and Burger Courts.-

• Capstone Presentation
• By
• Geoff Warren

2
The Warren Court (1953-69) The Burger Court
(1969-86)

• Would the liberal/activist doctrine of the Warren
  Court be struck by the more Conservative Burger
  Court?

3
Why would the more conservative Burger Court
leave much of the Warren Court civil liberties
and civil rights doctrine in place but attack the
Warren Court First Amendment doctrine?

• The Burger Court lacked the cohesion marked by
  the Warren Court as well as the strong leadership
  provided by Earl Warren.

4
The Warren Court

• The Warren Court was an activist body that played
  the role of a super legislature.
• -obscenity, school prayer, libel, criminal
  defendant rights, desegregation, gerrymandering,
  the right to privacy, and equal protection
  doctrine.

5
Liberal Wing

• Earl Warren
• Hugo Black
• William O. Douglas

6
Moderate Liberals

• William J. Brennan
• Arthur J. Goldberg

7
Conservative Justices

• John Marshall Harlan
• Potter Stewart
• Felix Frankfurter
• Charles E. Whittaker
• Harold H. Burton
• Sherman Minton
• Stanley F. Reed

8
Unclassified

• Tom C. Clark
• Byron R. White

9
Brown v. Board of Education

• -Plessy v. Ferguson
• -separate but equal
• -not equal but separate
• -majority decisions to unanimous decisions

10
Earl Warren

• -forged coalitions
• -directed the evolution of law
• -compromise and consensus building

11
The Burger Court

• Brain-child of Nixon

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The Warren Majority

• Abe Fortas
• Thurgood Marshall
• William J. Brennan
• William O. Douglas
• Byron White
• Hugo Black

13
Conservatives

• Warren Burger
• Potter Stewart
• John Marshall Harlan
• Harry A. Blackmun
• William Rehnquist
• Lewis Powell
• John Paul Stevens
• Sandra Day OConnor

14
Conference

• -less time in Conference
• -less time for collective deliberation and
  consensus building
• -less agreement on Court rulings
• -greater number of separate opinions

15
Miller v. California

• -assign a Justice to produce a memorandum
• -consensus formed and Justice picked to write
  opinion
• -sharpened confrontations between opposing policy
  preferences.
• -Burger and Brennan openly compete for votes
• -bare majority accepts Burgers

16
Warren Burger

• -scorned by Warren holdovers as well as new
  appointees
• -often unprepared for conference
• -willing to change position in conference just to
  reach majority
• -product of the Nixon Whitehouse

17
Statistical Analysis

• -The Burger Court from 1969-1980 averaged 138
  institutional and issued 43 separate opinions, 45
  concurring opinions, and 105 dissenting opinions.
• -The Burger Court issued about two times the
  number of concurring opinions and 3 times the
  number of separate opinions.
• -Burger Court 52 days to complete an opinion and
  the Warren Court 35.
• -Warren Court averaged 8 cases a year of 5-4
  votes, the Burger Court in first year 18.
• -Between 1901 and the last year of the Warren
  Court, there were 51 cases decided by plurality
  opinion. The Burger Court handed down 111 in
  total.

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Burger Courts Passive Activism

• -helped to solidify judicial activism by means of
  a passive course of decision making
• -reversals of Warren Court precedents never
  materialized
• -Brown v. Board of Education, Reynolds v. Sims,
  and Miranda v. Arizona still intact
• -secondary landmark precedents also intact
• -New York Times v. Sullivan, Griswold v.
  Connecticut, and Engel v. Vitale

19
The Activist Burger Court

• -became an activist court
• -In 16 terms, the Warren Court invalidated 19
  provisions of federal statues.
• -In the 1st through 13th terms of the Burger
  Court, it struck down 24.
• -Buckley v. Valeo, National League of Cities v.
  Usery, and Northern Pipeline Construction Co. v.
  Marathon Pipeline Co.

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Activism in Civil Rights

• -continued Warren Courts activism
• -two recurring issues the desegregation of
  urban school districts and the legality of
  racially discriminating effects in the absence of
  discriminating purpose
• -Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

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Conservative First Amendment Doctrine

• -link between Burger Courts free speech
  decisions and traditional property interests
• -Burger Court respectful of free speech when it
  didnt conflict with property interests
• -major concept that the primary office of civil
  liberties is to safeguard property and contract.
• -Spence v. Washington and First Bank of Boston v.
  Bellotti
• -Carey v. Brown and United States Postal Service
  v. Council of Greenburgh Civic Associations

22
Personal Privacy as opposed to equality

• -heard cases based on personal privacy as opposed
  to equality
• -autonomy rather than freedom
• -abortion Griswold v. Connecticut overturns
  Maher v. Roe
• -First Amendment Buckley v. Valeo

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The Courts and Their Generations

• -Warren Court activist but its generation was not
• -The Burger Court and its generation were
  activist
• -Burger Court responsive to the breakdown of the
  New Deal
• -Court should be active in defense of the values
  esteemed by the generation

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In Conclusion

• -leadership of Earl Warren
• -Burger Court more activist than the Warren Court
• -personal property and personal privacy