Harry A. Blackmun: The Outsider Justice
Yarbrough, professor emeritus of political science at East Carolina University and biographer of Supreme Court Justice David Souter, now explores another enigmatic justice, observing the sources and effects of his enduring sense of self-doubt and of himself as an outsider. Although he provides perfunctory biographical facts as well as a few credible psychological observations—that Blackmun had a father of questionable competence and a mother who suffered from depression—it is the evolution of Blackmun's jurisprudence as the liberal Warren Court transforms to the conservative Burger and Rehnquist courts that primarily interests Yarbrough. He ably explores Blackmun's reasoning on many complicated issues, among them the First Amendment, federalism and the death penalty (which Blackmun eloquently disavowed in his final term), but it is Blackmun's seminal 1973Roev.Wadeopinion that fully engages him. Yarbrough is a knowledgeable Court observer and his detailed chronicle of Blackmun's later behind-the-scenes maneuvering to preserveRoefrom being undermined is fascinating and well told. When appointed to the high court by President Nixon, Blackmun was expected to be a conservative twin of his boyhood friend Chief Justice Burger, and his transformation as the Court's liberal icon is a noteworthy story. 13 b&w illus.(Jan.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.