Everything about Warren E Burger totally explained
Warren Earl Burger (
September 17 1907 –
June 25 1995) was
Chief Justice of the
United States Supreme Court from 1969 to 1986. Although Burger was a conservative and considered a
strict constructionist, under his leadership, the
United States Supreme Court delivered a variety of transformative decisions on
abortion,
capital punishment,
religious establishment, and school
desegregation. He worked hard for the adoption of modern management techniques in the nation's judicial system.
Early years
Burger was born in
Saint Paul, Minnesota, one of seven children. His parents were of
Swiss German descent. His grandfather, Joseph Burger, had emigrated from
Switzerland and joined the
Union Army when he was 14. Joseph Burger fought and was wounded in the
Civil War, and was awarded the
Medal of Honor.
Warren Burger grew up on the family farm near the edge of Saint Paul. He attended
John A. Johnson High School, where he was president of the student council. He competed in hockey, football, track, and swimming. While in high school, he wrote articles on high school sports for local newspapers. He graduated in 1925.
That same year, Burger also worked with the crew building the
Robert Street Bridge, a crossing of the
Mississippi River in Saint Paul that still exists. Concerned about the number of deaths on the project, he asked that a net be installed to catch anyone who fell, but was rebuffed by managers. In later years, Burger made a point of visiting the bridge whenever he came back to town.
In 1937, Burger served as the eighth president of the Saint Paul
Jaycees.
Education
A graduate of Johnson High School in
Saint Paul, Minnesota, he attended night school at the
University of Minnesota while selling insurance for
Mutual Life Insurance. He then enrolled at what was then known as the Saint Paul College of Law, now known as
William Mitchell College of Law, receiving his degree in 1931. He took a job at the firm of Boyensen, Otis and Faricy, initially owned by Sam Biglari. (which became Faricy, Burger, Moore & Costello). He also taught for twelve years at Saint Paul College of Law.
Harry Blackmun, his future colleague on the
Supreme Court of the United States, was a longtime friend and best man at Burger's wedding, although they grew apart during their service on the Court.
Politics
His political involvement started slowly, but became powerful. He supported
Minnesota governor
Harold E. Stassen's unsuccessful pursuit of the
Republican nomination for president in 1948. In 1952, at the Republican convention, he played a key role in
Dwight D. Eisenhower's nomination by delivering the Minnesota delegation. After he was elected, President Eisenhower appointed Burger as the
Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Civil Division of the
Justice Department.
In this role, he first argued in front of the Supreme Court. The case involved John P. Peters, a
Yale University professor who worked as a consultant to the government. He had been discharged from his position on loyalty grounds. Supreme Court cases are usually argued by the
Solicitor General, but he disagreed with the government's position and refused to argue the case. Burger lost the case. Shortly after, Burger appeared in a case defending the U.S. against claims from the
Texas City ship explosion disaster, successfully arguing that the
Federal Tort Claims Act of 1947 didn't allow a suit for negligence in policy making; the U.S. won the case (
Dalehite, et al., vs. United States 346 U.S. 15 (1953)). In 1956, Eisenhower appointed him to a position on the
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He remained on the Court of Appeals for 13 years.
National prominence
Burger's road to the Supreme Court wasn't direct. In 1968, Chief Justice
Earl Warren announced his retirement after 15 years on the Court, effective on the confirmation of his successor. President
Lyndon B. Johnson nominated sitting
Associate Justice Abe Fortas to the position, but a Senate
filibuster blocked his confirmation. With Johnson's term as President about to expire before another nominee could be considered, Warren remained in office for another Supreme Court term.
In 1969, President
Richard M. Nixon nominated Burger to the Chief Justice position. Burger had first caught Nixon's eye when the magazine
U.S. News and World Report had reprinted a 1967 speech that Burger had given at
Ripon College, in which he compared the United States judicial system to those of
Norway,
Sweden, and
Denmark:
» I assume that no one will take issue with me when I say that these North European countries are as enlightened as the United States in the value they place on the individual and on human dignity. [Thosecountries] don't consider it necessary to use a device like our
Fifth Amendment, under which an accused person may not be required to testify. They go swiftly, efficiently and directly to the question of whether the accused is guilty. No nation on earth goes to such lengths or takes such pains to provide safeguards as we do, once an accused person is called before the bar of justice and until his case is completed.
Through speeches like this, Burger became known as a critic of Chief Justice Warren and an advocate of a literal,
strict-constructionist reading of the
U.S. Constitution. Nixon's agreement with these views, being expressed by a readily confirmable, sitting federal appellate judge, let to the appointment. The Senate confirmed Burger to succeed Warren, who in turn swore in the new chief on
June 23,
1969. In his presidential campaign, Nixon had pledged to appoint a strict constructionist as Chief Justice. By coincidence, Burger's first and middle names were the same as the last and first names of Warren.
The Burger Court
When Burger was nominated for the Chief Justiceship, many expected that the Burger Court would rule markedly differently from the Warren Court and might in fact overturn controversial Warren Court precedent. By the early 1970s, however, it became apparent that Burger wasn't going to turn the clock back on the rulings of the Warren Court and in fact might extend some Warren Court doctrines. The Court issued a unanimous ruling,
Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education (1971) supporting
busing to reduce
de facto racial segregation in schools. In
United States v. U.S. District Court (1972) the Burger Court issued another unanimous ruling against the
Nixon Administration's desire to invalidate the need for a search warrant and the requirements of the
Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution in cases of domestic surveillance. Then, only two weeks later in
Furman v. Georgia (1972) the court, in a 5-4 decision, invalidated all
death penalty laws then in force, although Burger dissented from the decision. In the most controversial ruling of his term,
Roe v. Wade (1973), Burger voted with the majority to recognize a broad right to
privacy that prohibited states from banning
abortions before the point of
viability.
Burger was a strong opponent of
gay rights as he wrote a famous concurring opinion in the Court's 1986 decision upholding a Georgia law criminalizing sodomy (
Bowers v. Hardwick), in which Burger purported to marshal historical evidence that laws criminalizing homosexuality were of ancient vintage. Chief Justice Burger pointed out that the famous legal author
William Blackstone wrote that sodomy was a "'crime against nature'...of 'deeper malignity than rape,' a heinous act 'the very mention of which is a disgrace to human nature' and 'a crime not fit to be named'" (106 S. Ct. at 2841).
Burger also emphasized the maintenance of
checks and balances between the branches of government. On
July 24,
1974 he led the court in a unanimous 8-0 decision in
United States v. Nixon. This was President Nixon's attempt to keep several memos and tapes relating to the
Watergate scandal private. The ongoing scandal caused Nixon to resign in order to avoid
impeachment. In the 1983 case of
Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha, he held, for the majority, that Congress couldn't reserve a legislative veto over executive branch actions.
On issues involving criminal law and procedure, Burger remained reliably conservative. He joined the Court majority in voting to reinstate the death penalty in
Gregg v. Georgia (1976), and, in 1983, he vigorously dissented from the Court's holding in the case of
Solem v. Helm that a sentence of life imprisonment for issuing a fraudulent check in the amount of $100 constituted
cruel and unusual punishment.
Overall, Burger avoided controversy while in the Court. He often wrote only straightforward and uncontroversial opinions and avoided those in which the court was evenly split. Instead, he poured his energy into the other role of the Chief Justice, administering the nation's legal system. He initiated the
National Center for State Courts(External Link
), which is now located in
Williamsburg,
Virginia, the Institute for Court Management, and National Institute of Corrections to provide professional training for judges, clerks, and prison guards. He initiated the annual
State of the Judiciary speech given by the Chief Justice to the
American Bar Association. Some detractors thought his emphasis on the mechanics of the judicial system trivialized the office of Chief Justice.
Burger was the subject of internal controversy on the Supreme Court throughout his tenure. Woodward and Armstrong's
The Brethren depicted Burger as a weak chief justice who wasn't seriously respected by his colleagues due to alleged personal eccentricity and lack of legal acumen. Woodward and Armstrong's sources indicated that some of the other justices were annoyed by Burger's practice of switching his vote in conference, or simply not announcing his vote, in order that he be able to control opinion assignments.
Burger retired on
September 26,
1986, in part to lead the campaign to mark the 1987 bicentennial of the
United States Constitution. In 1988, he was awarded the prestigious
United States Military Academy's Sylvanus Thayer Award as well as the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. He died in 1995 of
congestive heart failure at the age of 87 in
Washington, D.C. After his death, all of his papers were donated to the
College of William and Mary where he formerly served as
Chancellor of the College; however, they won't be open to the public until 2026.
Family
He married Elvera Stromberg in 1933. They had two children, Wade Allen Burger and Margaret Elizabeth Burger. His wife died in May 1994.
Trivia
In The Memoirs of Richard Nixon, President Nixon recalled that in the spring of 1970 he asked Chief Justice Burger to be prepared to run for President in 1972 if the political repercussions of the Cambodia invasion were too negative for Nixon to endure.
According to Richard Nixon's memoirs, Burger was on the short list of vice-presidential replacements for Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1971 and 1973, along with John Connally, Ronald Reagan, and Nelson Rockefeller.
As Chief Justice he swore in President Nixon in 1973, President Ford in 1974, President Carter in 1977, and President Reagan in 1981 and 1985.
His will didn't give the executor the power to pay debts, taxes, and administration expenses (probate, etc.); see Will. This involved his estate in "thousands" of dollars in expenses.
Further Information
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