The Sept. 3 death of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist at the age of 80 left a legacy of landmark decisions and a tightly run courtroom. But it also leaves the Supreme Court with two vacancies after 11 years of stability.
He died at his home in Virginia just under a year after the court announced he had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. His body was to lie in repose in the Supreme Court until his Sept. 7 funeral at St. Matthew Catholic Cathedral.
The current court's longest-serving member, Rehnquist first joined the court in 1972 on the same day as Justice Lewis Powell, the last time there were two vacancies at once. Rehnquist was elevated to chief justice by President Ronald W. Reagan in 1986, upon the retirement of Justice Warren Burger.
Rehnquist was praised by abortion opponents for his votes dissenting from the1973 Roe vs. Wade decision and later to overturn that ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, and for declaring in another case that "life begins at conception." He also wrote opinions supporting government-funded programs that included students at religious schools and opposing laws to permit assisted suicide.
On other legal issues the church followed closely, however, his rulings permitted General Electric to refuse to pay for maternity leave under disability coverage, said the military ban on wearing religious apparel such as yarmulkes was permissible and repeatedly upheld the death penalty.
Rehnquist, a native of Milwaukee, died just over three weeks short of his 81st birthday, Oct. 1. Though Rehnquist was Lutheran, his family requested the use of the cathedral because of its size, according to the Archdiocese of Washington. The recently renovated cathedral seats 2,000.
Rehnquist served in the U.S. Army Air Corps in North Africa during World War II. Upon his return, he attended Stanford University, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees as well as a law degree.
One of his 1952 classmates at Stanford's law school later was to join him on the Supreme Court as Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. On July 1 she announced her plans to resign from the court as soon as her replacement has been confirmed. Federal appeals court Judge John G. Roberts was nominated in July to fill O'Connor's seat. On Sept. 5 President George W. Bush announced that Roberts would be his nominee to become chief justice and that another nomination would soon follow for the associate justice's seat.
Rehnquist was named to the court after working in private practice in Phoenix for 16 years and serving as an assistant U.S. attorney general from 1969 to 1972.
Rehnquist was the last remaining member of the court who ruled in Roe vs. Wade. In that much-debated landmark decision, a 7-2 majority of the court agreed that the 14th Amendment protecting privacy rights precluded states from prohibiting abortions. In his dissent, Rehnquist disagreed with the majority's finding that abortion is a protected right, as well as their conclusion that the right to abortion was so universally accepted "in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental."
In 1992, Rehnquist was among a minority of four justices who would have overturned Roe, using a case challenging Pennsylvania's abortion restrictions.
In Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, Rehnquist was among seven justices who upheld provisions of state law requiring informed consent, waiting periods and parental notification for minors before abortions could be obtained. He wrote the minority opinion in the same case that would have abandoned Roe, arguing that time had proven how "outlandish" the 1973 ruling had been. "When it becomes clear that a prior constitutional interpretation is unsound we are obliged to re-examine the question," Rehnquist wrote.
Beginning with the 1972 Furman vs. Georgia case, a 5-4 ruling that found most federal and state death penalty laws to be "arbitrary and capricious," Rehnquist consistently upheld capital punishment statutes and their application. He wrote one of four dissenting opinions in Furman.
Once states rewrote their capital punishment laws, and cases based on the new statutes reached the court, Rehnquist generally upheld the use of capital punishment, even in situations where the majority said otherwise. One such case was a 1976 ruling in which the 6-3 majority found North Carolina's mandatory death sentence statute to be unconstitutional, and Rehnquist dissented.
In 1993, Rehnquist wrote for a 6-3 majority that evidence of innocence is not necessarily a reason to stop an execution. Rehnquist said the innocent are protected by the power governors have to commute death sentences. Those who were convicted in fair trials are not entitled to new trials, he said. A claim of "'actual innocence' is not itself a constitutional claim," Rehnquist wrote.
During his tenure as chief justice, Rehnquist supported decisions that restricted the rights of death row inmates to petition federal courts to stop their executions. He also wrote a 6-3 majority ruling in 1986 that said prosecutors may keep death penalty opponents off juries in capital offense cases.
More recently, Rehnquist was in the minority of justices who dissented in rulings that ended capital punishment for juveniles and for people who are mentally retarded. In 2002 the court by a 6-3 majority said executing people who are retarded is cruel and unusual punishment and unconstitutional. This March, in a 5-4 ruling, the court found similar constitutional objections to executing people for crimes committed when they were under age 18. Rehnquist dissented in both decisions.
Here are some other cases covered by the Catholic press in which Rehnquist's opinion prevailed or in which he was in a narrow majority:
---Rehnquist wrote the 1991 5-4 majority opinion finding that the federal government's ban on abortion counseling in a family planning program does not violate either free-speech rights or a woman's right to have an abortion.
---In Madsen vs. Aware Woman Center in 1994, Rehnquist wrote the 8-1 ruling that said it is constitutional to prohibit protesters within 36 feet of an abortion clinic.
---Also in 1994 Rehnquist wrote a unanimous opinion saying abortion protesters need not have an economic motive to be prosecuted under federal anti-racketeering laws. The court declined to rule on whether the defendants, Joseph Scheidler and the Pro-Life Action Network, Operation Rescue and others, fit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act provisions, but said in general the RICO statutes do not require proof of an economic motive.
---In 2003, when the Scheidler case came back after lower courts approved an injunction against the abortion protesters and ordered them to pay more than $250,000 in damages, Rehnquist wrote the 8-1 ruling saying the RICO law did not apply to those individuals and groups.
---Writing for the court in a 5-4 ruling, Rehnquist in 1990 said the state of Missouri's interests in protecting and preserving human life superseded the wishes of Nancy Cruzan's family to have food and hydration removed from the woman in a persistent vegetative state.
---In 1997 rulings, Rehnquist wrote for a unanimous court that upheld New York and Washington bans on assisted suicide. Though only five justices signed onto Rehnquist's legal reasoning for upholding the state laws, all nine concurred with the decision that they should be allowed to stand.
---He wrote a 6-3 majority opinion in 1976 that said General Electric could refuse to include maternity leave under disability coverage. He said the company's coverage didn't discriminate on the basis of gender, but "merely removes one physical condition --- pregnancy --- from the list of compensable disabilities."
---Writing for a 7-2 majority in 2004, he said state-funded college scholarship programs do not have to include students who are pursuing careers in religious ministry.
---In a 5-4 decision in 2002, Rehnquist upheld Cleveland's school voucher program, which includes religious schools. The opinion said it is "a program of true private choice" and does not violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
---He wrote a 5-4 decision in 1993 that said public school districts may provide assistance for handicapped students who attend religious schools. In that case, the student used a sign-language interpreter as he attended Salpointe Catholic High School in Tucson, Ariz.
---In a 1997 case, he joined a 5-4 majority that said tax-funded remedial education programs may be held on the grounds of religious schools. |