In Praise of Justice Blackmun: (Corrected) Typos and All
9 Pages Posted: 9 Feb 2013
Date Written: January 1, 1999
Abstract
If we are to search Justice Harry A. Blackmun's constitutional oeuvre for an appropriate epitaph, the leading candidate would be his statement in DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, that "compassion need not be exiled from the province of judging." Those of us who had the good fortune to know Justice Blackmun may be tempted to say that he brought to the profession of judging the same remarkable warmth, sensitivity, and humility that characterized his personal relationships. Yet this observation strikes me as too facile. Many of those who devote their professional lives to labors on behalf of "the people" have no great fondness or respect for actual people, and personally decent individuals sometimes do great evil when wearing official hats (or robes). Thus, although there is undoubtedly some relation between everyone's public and private selves, the relation is often quite complex and subtle. In this essay I try to shed a bit more light on the wellsprings of Justice Blackmun's jurisprudence. The exercise is necessarily speculative, but I believe my conclusions to be at least as plausible as the conventional wisdom that Justice Blackmun was a compassionate Justice because he was a compassionate man.
Keywords: Justice Harry A. Blackmun, compassion, jurisprudence, Roe v. Wade, abortion
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