Blackmun, Harry A. (1908— )
Files
Description
Nothing in Harry A. Blackmun's background presaged that within three years of his appointment he would write the most controversial Supreme Court opinion of his time—Roe v. Wade (1972)—providing significant constitutional protection to women and their doctors in the area of abortion. . . . Blackmun's commitment to a jurisprudence of just deserts is reflected in three characteristic motifs that pervade his opinions. First, he is openly mistrustful of rigidly doctrinaire analyses that force him into unfair or unreasonable resolutions of cases. In rejecting the Court's two-tier equal protection analysis in favor of a more “flexible” doctrine, or expressing skepticism about prophylactic exclusionary rules in the criminal process, or searching for a federalism compromise based more on pragmatism than on theory, or rejecting automatic use of the overbreadth doctrine in First Amendment cases, Justice Blackmun refuses to allow doctrine to force him into dispute resolutions that seem intuitively unfair or that give an unjust windfall to one of the parties before the Court. Second, his opinions are fact-oriented, canvassing both = adjudicative and legislative facts in an attempt to place the dispute before the Court in a realistic context. In his more recent opinions, he frequently scolds the Court for slighting a case's factual context, often complaining that the Court's desire to announce law has taken it beyond the actual dispute before the Court. Finally, he insists upon results that accord with his view of the “real” world. His decisions have tended to support efforts to undo the consequences of racial discrimination and have demonstrated an increasing empathy for the plight of the powerless, while demonstrating little sympathy for lawbreakers. Such a personal vision of “reality” must ultimately inject a dose of subjectivism into the decision-making process. Yet Justice Blackmun's qualities of mind and heart serve to remind the Court that a doctrinaire, intellectualized jurisprudence needs to be balanced by a jurisprudence grounded in intuitive fairness to the parties, human warmth, and pragmatic realism.
Source Publication
Encyclopedia of the American Constitution
Source Editors/Authors
Leonard W. Levy, Kenneth L. Karst, Dennis J. Mahoney
Publication Date
1986
Edition
1
Volume Number
1: ABBA—CONS
Recommended Citation
Neuborne, Burt, "Blackmun, Harry A. (1908— )" (1986). Faculty Chapters. 1357.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1357
