Burger, Warren Earl

▪ 1996

      U.S. Supreme Court chief justice (b. Sept. 17, 1907, St. Paul, Minn.—d. June 25, 1995, Washington, D.C.), presided (1969-86) as the 15th chief justice of the United States. Burger, who attended night school to earn a law degree (1931) from St. Paul (now William Mitchell) College of Law, joined a prominent law firm in his hometown while gradually becoming active in Republican Party politics. After helping Dwight D. Eisenhower secure the 1952 presidential nomination, Burger was rewarded with the post of assistant attorney general. In 1956 he was elevated to the U.S. Court of Appeals, where he acquired a reputation as a conservative and came to the attention of Pres. Richard M. Nixon, who needed to replace retiring liberal Chief Justice Earl Warren. Though Burger and three other Nixon appointees were expected to reverse the activist thrust that characterized the Warren legacy on civil rights issues and criminal law, they upheld both the 1966 Miranda decision, requiring that a criminal suspect under arrest be informed of his rights, and the decision to validate busing as a means of racially desegregating public schools. Though generally steering a conservative course, Burger voted with the majority in the court's landmark 1973 decision (Roe v. Wade) that established a woman's constitutional right to have an abortion, and in 1974 he wrote the legal opinion for the 8-0 decision that struck down executive privilege and forced Nixon to surrender White House tapes containing conversations about the Watergate scandal. Burger also unsealed court records that named Nixon an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the Watergate affair. Nixon was then forced to resign. Burger was noted for taking an activist role in the administration of the court. He modernized and computerized the court and overhauled the entire judicial system, though his campaign to create a new level of appellate courts to lighten the Supreme Court's caseload failed to gain support. In 1986 Burger, the longest-serving chief justice in the 20th century, unexpectedly resigned to assume the chairmanship of the commission planning the bicentennial celebration of the U.S. Constitution (1987). He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1988. His book, It Is So Ordered (1995), examined 14 cases that helped shape constitutional interpretation.

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