To the question “does a person become any different once he puts on a judge’s black robes?” Justice Felix Frankfurter answered, “If he is any good, he does.”
Some justices shift ideology, but in other cases justices are forced to rule on issues not anticipated when they were nominated.
Click a photo below to learn more";
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scotus_orient[i-1].body = "Earl Warren (term 1953-1969)
In 1953, Dwight Eisenhower nominated fellow Republican Earl Warren, the governor of California and former state attorney general and Alameda County district attorney, to be chief justice. Eisenhower later regretted that choice. Warren led a judicial revolution. His rulings ordered school desegregation; the banning of student recitation of prayers in public schools; the overturning of obscenity convictions; and the requirement that police give those they arrest a “Miranda warning” of their right to remain silent. Asked if he’d made any mistakes as president, Ike replied, “Yes, two and they are both sitting on the Supreme Court,” referring to Warren and his fellow liberal William Brennan, appointed by Eisenhower in 1958.";
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scotus_orient[i-1].body = "Byron White (term 1962-1993)
A dynamic young president, John F. Kennedy, appointed a dynamic and young (age 44) friend of his -- Deputy Attorney General Byron White -- to the Supreme Court in 1962. As number-two man in the Justice Department, White worked on a burning issue of the day: enforcement of civil rights for blacks in the South. Once on the court, White proved to be not a doctrinaire liberal, but a pragmatist, and, on some social issues, a conservative. He supported anti-pornography laws and dissented from the liberal Warren Court’s landmark Miranda ruling in 1965. He dissented from the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. He called that decision “an exercise of raw judicial power.” White also wrote the majority decision in Bowers v Hardwick in 1986, which said there was no constitutional right to same-sex sodomy, a ruling overturned by the court in Lawrence v. Texas in 2003.";
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scotus_orient[i-1].body = "Harry Blackmun (term 1970-1994)
Richard Nixon won the presidency in 1968 partly on a platform of cracking down on crime and making the courts less sympathetic to criminal defendants. After the Senate rejected two of Nixon’s Supreme Court nominees (both Southerners) in 1969 and 1970, Nixon somewhat reluctantly turned to Blackmun, a Minnesota federal appeals judge and a friend of Chief Justice Warren Burger. Over a 24-year career on the high court, Blackmun turned into one of the court’s leading liberals, writing the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973 legalizing abortion nationwide; favoring a ban on clergy saying prayers at public school graduations; and becoming a passionate crusader against the death penalty. ";
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scotus_orient[i-1].body = "Anthony Kennedy (1988-present)
For the opening created by the retirement of Justice Lewis Powell in 1987, President Reagan’s first nominee was conservative hero Robert Bork. After the Senate rejected Bork, Reagan picked appeals court judge Douglas Ginsburg, who withdrew after admitting that he had smoked marijuana. Finally Reagan settled on federal appeals court judge Anthony Kennedy. The Reaganites knew Kennedy wouldn’t be quite as conservative as Bork but they had no idea he’d eventually write the landmark Lawrence v. Texas decision, declaring a constitutional right to same-sex sodomy. Conservatives have also denounced Kennedy for using foreign legal rulings to justify overturning American death penalty statutes.
";
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scotus_orient[i-1].body = "David Souter (1990-present)
President George H.W. Bush was assured by Sen. Warren Rudman, R-N.H. and former New Hampshire governor John Sununu that New Hampshire jurist David Souter would make a fine Supreme Court justice. The taciturn Granite State judge revealed little during his Senate confirmation hearings. Even so, Sen. Edward Kennedy, Sen. John Kerry and seven other Democrats voted against him, thinking he’d vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. But Souter turned out to be a stalwart supporter of abortion rights: he co-wrote the 1992 Casey decision affirming Roe. On gay rights and the death penalty as well, Souter was a reliable liberal vote. Ever since, a rallying cry for conservatives has been, “No more Souters!”
";
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scotus_orient[i-1].body = "Clarence Thomas (1991-present)
As a Reagan administration official, Clarence Thomas had a clear record of giving speeches denouncing racial preferences. During his confirmation hearings he told the Senate Judiciary committee he had never discussed Roe v. Wade, a claim some Democrats found unconvincing. Once on the high court Thomas proved to be the most conservative justice, urging a faithful heeding of the original text of the Constitution. In the 1995 decision United States v. Lopez he wanted to go further than Chief Justice Rehnquist in curbing the powers of Congress to regulate state matters, saying Supreme Court rulings since the 1930s had “drifted far from the original understanding of the Commerce Clause.”
"; // END editorial data