Warren Burger: portrait of a legal titan.

• Author: Rentschler, William H.

The late Chief Justice's stance on crime and punishment was rational, evenhanded, and at odds with much of recent inflammatory rhetoric.

It is increasingly clear that Warren Burger, the former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who died on June 25, 1995, made an indelible imprint on the American justice system during his 17-year tenure. When he was chosen for the nation's highest legal post by Pres. Richard Nixon in 1969, Burger was the leader of the conservative wing of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, to which he had been named by Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Nixon probably expected Burger to hew to the conservative line of judicial thinking, even though Nixon the politician was more pragmatic than strictly ideological. However, Burger, a lifelong Republican, had his own ideas and brand of cautious independence.

White House counsel Abner Mikva, former liberal Congressman (D.-Ill.) and Federal Appellate Court judge, believes Burger became an "important moderating force" as Chief Justice and never settled into the role of dependable conservative. Norval Morris, professor of law and criminology and former dean of the University of Chicago Law School, singled out Burger for "his deep and abiding concern for those imprisoned in the U.S. The extent of his interest is unique among Supreme Court justices; he [had] gone to great lengths over the years to inform himself about the state of prisons worldwide, visiting many in this country and abroad, seeking out their best features, and calling for meaningful reform here."

Mikva and syndicated columnist George Will take pains to stress Burger's firm commitment to improving the administration of the courts and speeding up the notoriously sluggish pace of litigation, an objective Burger set for himself even before his confirmation. According to Mikva, "He was a judge's justice who greatly improved legal processes and provided greater resources to meet the increasing demands judges faced."

"The biggest explosion of litigation in this nation's history came during his watch," Will notes. "He was in the forefront of dealing with it and made a significant contribution to upgrading both the quality of justice and of administration. He brought solid judicial experience and temperament to the Supreme Court."

This was in keeping with a pledge Burger made during his confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee in 1969: "I would think it was the duty of the Chief Justice [to try] to make our system work better, and I would expect to devote every energy and every moment of the rest of my life to that end should I be confirmed."

How well he succeeded in that self-assigned mission is attested to by the assessment of other jurists, such as Vincent McKusick, chief justice of Maine and former chairman of the Conference of State Chief Justices, who maintained that Burger had "done more than any other person in history to improve the operation of all our nations courts."

Burger was thought by some to be icy, aloof, and overbearing. Yet, Geoffrey Stone, provost of the University of Chicago and dean of its Law School after Morris, tells a small tale which softens that image and paints a warmer picture.

Stone, a law clerk for Justice William J. Brennan in the early 1970s, was playing basketball one night with other clerks on the hardwood court in the Supreme Court Building. "Social pork," Stone jocularly referred to the facility in relating the story, "to keep the clerks off the streets and out of trouble," alluding to protests against "midnight basketball' for gang members during the recent acrimonious Crime Bill debate in Congress.

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