Harry Blackmun

Harry Andrew Blackmun ( born November 12, 1908 in Nashville, Illinois; † March 4, 1999 in Arlington, Virginia) was an American lawyer and judge of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Life and work

Blackmun was initially 1959 to 1970 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the eighth circuit court of. He followed there on John B. Sanborn, for whom he had worked in the 1930s as a legal assistant ( Law Clerk ). On April 4, 1970, he was nominated by President Richard Nixon as a successor to the retiring Abe Fortas to the Supreme Court. Nixon's previous candidate Clement Haynsworth and G. Harrold Carswell, two conservative federal judges from the Southern States were, failed the vote in the Senate. Blackmun, however, was confirmed by 94:0 votes and proved during his tenure on June 9, 1970 to August 3, 1994 initially as a conservative, then as a rather liberal judge.

Its historic merit is seen in the fact that he was the author of the majority opinion in the seminal decision in the case Roe v. Wade, which abolished laws restricting abortion in the United States and declared abortion as a constitutional right. The Supreme Court of the United States was with seven votes to two, that all other government schemes that banning abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy, were not compatible with the U.S. Constitution.

Blackmun announced his resignation in April 1994 by the Supreme Court. As his successor, Stephen Breyer was nominated. Blackmun suffered on 22 February 1999 in a fall a hip fracture and died ten days later from complications that occurred during the subsequent operation. His final resting place is the Arlington National Cemetery.

So far the only Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun took part in a movie as an actor. In Amistad, a 1997 historical drama created on the Amistad Trails, he put Joseph Story is one of his predecessors at the Supreme Court

Swell

• Bill Clinton: My Life. Vintage, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-3003- X
• Linda Greenhouse: Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun 's Supreme Court Journey. Henry Holt, 2005. ISBN 0-8050-8057-0