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By Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq.
July 26, 2006
Last month, the closing month of the October 2005 Term of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Court held a most uncommon Special Session deservedly to honor the late, brilliant and beloved 16th Chief Justice of the United States, William H. Rehnquist.
The Special Session was preceded by an invitational meeting of the Supreme Court Bar, to which this writer, who was admitted to that Bar in 1957 upon motion of Vice President Richard M. Nixon, his wife, selected other Supreme Court Bar members, family and friends of the late Chief were invited. The Special Session also was invitational, as was the reception following. The full Supreme Court presided over the Special Session; Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., participated in the Meeting of the Supreme Court Bar; and all the Justices, for varying periods of time, attended the reception.
This writer was honored to be among those unanimously voting for the “Resolution of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States In Gratitude and Appreciation for the Life, Work and Service of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist.”
The Resolution is a charming mixture of legal and personal chitchat. Upon written request, addressed by mail to this writer, Free Congress Foundation would be pleased to mail a copy. (The original, 13 pages, technically is a public record among the records of the Supreme Court of the United States but might be more difficult to access than simply writing us a letter of request.)
The late Chief Justice was an extraordinary man with an extraordinary mind - three Stanford and one Harvard degree (first in class, of course); author of four popular history books; World War II volunteer and ultimately a sergeant in the North African Campaign; private practitioner; Assistant Attorney General of the United States, Office of Legal Counsel (sometimes, half-jokingly, half-seriously, known as “the President’s lawyer’s lawyer” - a position later held by the future Judge and Justice Antonin Scalia); Maricopa County Bar President; leader in various Arizona activities; so on.
He also was a devoted family man, a widower since 1991, three fine children, children-in-law, nine grandchildren.
Possibly of greatest interest to the readers of this column, the Rehnquist jurisprudence, displayed 1972 - 1986 as the 100th Associate Justice, 1986 - 2005 as 16th Chief Justice, already has achieved lasting recognition for his ability, in the trite and common phrase, to interpret, not make, law. How appropriate, and hopeful, it is that the 17th Chief Justice was a Rehnquist law clerk and that, in private discussion with this writer (and with a few others), the sadly ailing late Chief Justice spoke so favorably of the impending nominee Judge Roberts.
Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq. is President of, and Counsel to, the Free Congress Foundation.
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