•  
  •  
 

Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

Abstract

First let me say that the title is somewhat misleading insofar as it refers to the Burger Court. The truth is we do not really have a Burger Court if by that we mean a Court with a majority composed of persons appointed by President Nixon. To date we have four such appointees and if the thought is that this group is going to vote as a bloc or represent some change in constitutional theory, it is premature to speak of it as having a dominant influence. But apart from that I think the attempt to designate the style, tone, or direction of a Court by reference to its chief justice is misleading. This is commonly done. We refer, for instance, to the Marshall Court, the Taney Court, the Waite Court, the Taft Court, and the Hughes Court. The use fo the name of the chief justice is a convenient tool to designate a given period in the history of the Supreme Court. In so far as it suggests that the chief justice is a dominant person on the bench it may or may not be accurate. Any person on the Supreme Court may in a sense have a dominant or at least a highly persuasive voice simply because of his intellectual force and not because he is chief justice. I have always supposed that the particular position occupied by Chief Justice Warren was not attributable so much to any great intellectual leadership on his part as it was to qualities of personality which commanded the respect of his colleagues and of the public generally. Chief Justice Warren was aligned in many cases with at least four other justices, constituting a majority, who did fasion a series of constitutional interpretations which we now associate with the Warren Court. It is in this sense that I shall refer to the Warren Court.

Download
COinS