Byron White
| Byron White | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Former Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court From: April 16, 1962 – June 28, 1993 | |||
| Nominator | John F. Kennedy | ||
| Predecessor | Charles E. Whittaker | ||
| Successor | Ruth Bader Ginsburg | ||
| 4th Deputy Attorney General of the United States From: 1961-1962 | |||
| President | John F. Kennedy | ||
| Predecessor | Lawrence E. Walsh | ||
| Successor | Nicholas Katzenbach | ||
| Information | |||
| Religion | Episcopalian | ||
Byron Raymond White, (June 8, 1917 – April 15, 2002) was an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1962 to 1993. He was raised in Colorado, where a federal building housing the Tenth Circuit has been named after him.
A social conservative appointed by President John F. Kennedy, White was one of only two Justices to dissent from Roe v. Wade in 1973. He also opposed inventing a constitutional right for homosexuality, and wrote the decision for the Court in Bowers v. Hardwick (1986), which he stated that:
- It is obvious to us that neither of these [precedents] would extend a fundamental right to homosexuals to engage in acts of consensual sodomy. Proscriptions against that conduct have ancient roots. See generally Survey on the Constitutional Right to Privacy in the Context of Homosexual Activity, 40 U. Miami L. Rev. 521, 525 (1986). Sodomy was a criminal offense at common law and was forbidden by the laws of the original 13 States when they ratified the Bill of Rights. In 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, all but 5 of the 37 States in the Union had criminal sodomy laws. In fact, until 1961, all 50 States outlawed sodomy, and today, 24 States and the District of Columbia continue to provide criminal penalties for sodomy performed in private and between consenting adults. See Survey, U. Miami L. Rev., supra, at 524, n. 9. Against this background, to claim that a right to engage in such conduct is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" or "implicit in the concept of ordered liberty" is, at best, facetious.
Justice White wrote many of the expansive Court decisions on absolute judicial immunity.
He resigned in 1993 while only in his 70s so that President Bill Clinton, a fellow Democrat, could fill his vacancy.
White was a standout football player in the very early days of professional football (long before the NFL was formed) before becoming a judge. He was a recipient of the Bronze Star and was a Rhodes Scholar.[1]
