Book Reviews: Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey

• Author: Major Emily C. Schiffer
• Pages: 07

174 MILITARY LAW REVIEW [Vol. 187

BECOMING JUSTICE BLACKMUN: HARRY BLACKMUN'S SUPREME COURT JOURNEY1

REVIEWED BY MAJOR EMILY C. SCHIFFER2

[I]n September, just before the new term began, Justices Black and Harlan suddenly retired-each for reasons of rapidly failing health. . . . The vacancies presented Chief Justice Burger with an administrative problem. Given the contentious political climate, with memories of the Haynsworth and Carswell nomination debacles still fresh, there was every reason to fear that the positions would not be filled quickly.3

The bench had two empty seats, Congress quizzed potential justices, and reporters speculated on the future make-up of the Supreme Court. The challenges facing the Supreme Court in September 2005 were eerily similar to those in September 1971. Justice Harry A. Blackmun was an associate justice both when the Supreme Court lacked a full bench in 1971 and 1986 and during the adjustment periods following the new Court appointments. In 2006, as newly seated Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justice Samuel Alito move into their offices, there could not be a more relevant time in Supreme Court history for lawyers to learn from the past. In Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey, Linda Greenhouse uses the personal and official memoranda of Harry Blackmun (the Blackmun Papers) to examine his development as a Supreme Court Justice.4 Becoming Justice Blackmun is a highly readable, entertaining, and interesting legal narrative, but it has limited usefulness as a comprehensive biography of Justice Blackmun.

Justice Blackmun gifted his personal and official documents to the Library of Congress, directing that they be made public on 4 March

2004, five years after his death.5 The detail of these documents gave a unique glimpse into the inner-workings of the Supreme Court.6 Filling over 1,500 boxes and requiring more than 600 feet of space on the Library of Congress's shelves, Justice Blackmun's papers document almost every event in his personal and professional life from 1919 until his death in 1999.7 The Blackmun Papers encompass diverse items ranging from Justice Blackmun's honeymoon hotel receipts to the vote tallies for many significant Supreme Court cases during his twenty-four term tenure on the Court from 1970 to 1994.8

The Blackmun family granted three media outlets access to the files two months before their public release.9 One of the advance reviewers was Linda Greenhouse, the lead Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times since 1978.10 Greenhouse won a Pulitzer Prize in 1998 for her Supreme Court coverage.11 Although Greenhouse is an experienced reporter, her critics often attack her favorable reporting of the Court's more liberal justices.12 "'The Greenhouse Effect,' referring to the warm

reciprocity between court reporters and justices who meet with their approval, is named for her."13

In Becoming Justice Blackmun's prologue, Greenhouse appropriately warns readers that the book will be neither a "conventional biography nor a comprehensive survey of a judicial career."14 She instead purports to provide a "coherent narrative" of Justice Blackmun's personal and professional life.15 Becoming Justice Blackmun achieves Greenhouse's goal and provides readers with a human interest story uncommon among conventional biographies.

Justice Blackmun evolved from a conservative Nixon appointee to one of the Court's leading liberal jurists. The turning point, Greenhouse concludes, was his historic abortion opinion in Roe v. Wade and its trying aftermath.16 As Greenhouse repeatedly emphasizes, Justice Blackmun became a historic Supreme Court Justice once he wrote and defended Roe v. Wade.17

[Justice Blackmun] locked Roe in a tight embrace and never let it go. Its defense carried him in new directions: to commercial speech in Bigelow v. Virginia, the abortion advertising case; to the other world "out there" of poverty and need in the abortion-funding cases; and, most significant, to his eventual commitment to the struggle for women's equality in the sex discrimination cases.18

As she parses the Blackmun Papers, Greenhouse supports her thesis about Roe's impact with an analysis of Justice Blackmun's post-Roe opinions, demonstrating that Justice Blackmun found his true judicial

heart only after he had to battle Roe's critics.19 Greenhouse concludes that, out of necessity, Justice Blackmun evolved.20

Becoming Justice Blackmun's organization and fluidity make the book a page-turner for readers who want to learn more about Justice Blackmun and the Supreme Court. Greenhouse analogizes her thematic organization to a miner "standing in front of a huge open-face mine on which seams of precious metals were visible, running in various directions. . . . I could choose the most promising and see where they led."21 Greenhouse thoroughly mined the stories of the friendship of Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justice Blackmun, the creation and evolution of Roe v. Wade, the development of Justice Blackmun's death penalty philosophy, and Justice Blackmun's treatment of sex discrimination.22 Illustrations from the Blackmun Papers enhance her observations. When discussing significant cases in Blackmun's career, Greenhouse intersperses images of Justice Blackmun's handwritten notes and comments.23 These images allow readers to catch a rare, personal glimpse of his mental deliberations and judicial temperament.

Greenhouse also exposes the reader to the other justices who sat during Justice Blackmun's tenure, especially Chief Justice Warren Burger. The deteriorating friendship between Chief Justice Burger and Justice Blackmun becomes a significant focal point of the book. Greenhouse carefully tracks the exchanges of encouragement, congratulations, and, eventually, disappointment between the two men.24

Additionally, Greenhouse examines Justice Blackmun's...