As head of the judicial department — the title is chief justice of the USA, not chief justice of the Supreme Court docket — a chief justice has many obligations, greater than 80 of them specified by federal statutes that convey wide-ranging authority. However contained in the “convention,” the courtroom’s time period for the 9 justices as a collective, actual authority relies upon not on statutes however on qualities of management. A member of the courtroom, individually confirmed to a life-tenured place, owes nothing to every other member. The one significant constraint on the justices’ interpersonal conduct is horizontal, not vertical. Justices know they will accomplish little until there are 4 others keen to go alongside.
With regards to a chief justice, respect owed to the workplace goes solely up to now. Actual respect must be earned. Chief Justice Warren Burger, who served from 1969 to 1986, by no means appeared to earn it from colleagues who seen him as pompous and manipulative. Some apparently discovered him so exasperating that they leaked unflattering particulars concerning the courtroom typically and Burger specifically to the reporters Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong for his or her blockbuster greatest vendor, “The Brethren.”
His successor, William Rehnquist, had chafed underneath Chief Justice Burger for 15 years as an affiliate justice earlier than changing into chief justice in 1986. In essential methods, he was Burger’s reverse, prized by his colleagues, together with these to his left, as a straight shooter who might be counted on to say precisely what he thought. One in every of his strengths was that removed from searching for to domesticate a public picture, he didn’t appear to care what others considered him. He as soon as skipped the president’s State of the Union deal with as a result of it conflicted along with his portray class on the native recreation heart. Far to the fitting of the courtroom he joined in 1972, he was usually a lone dissenter in his early years. As chief justice, though he by no means deserted his rules, he was keen to bend if it meant he may converse for a unified courtroom. In fact, because the courtroom turned extra conservative with the arrival of recent Republican-appointed justices, he didn’t usually must bend very far. The grief his colleagues expressed when he died in workplace at age 80 wasn’t professional forma. It was actual.
I’ve thought of Chief Justice Rehnquist as criticism of the courtroom has intensified in the previous couple of months. He was a fierce defender of the courtroom’s standing and prerogatives, utilizing his year-end “state of the judiciary” report to talk up for judicial independence and name out Congress for enacting laws with affect on the judiciary with out consulting the judicial department. (Chief Justice Roberts, to his credit score, did rebuke President Trump in 2018 for attacking a decide who had dominated in opposition to his administration.) We’ll by no means know, clearly, however I believe Chief Justice Rehnquist would have drawn on his deep effectively of capital contained in the courtroom and located a method to let Justices Alito and Thomas know that recusal from the Trump immunity case can be extremely advisable even when not required. A raised eyebrow might need been enough.
John Roberts clerked for Justice Rehnquist when he was an affiliate justice within the courtroom’s 1980 time period. Whereas the 2 are mentioned to have been shut, their arduous wiring was actually very completely different. The present chief justice maintains beautiful management of his public persona, to the extent that it’s arduous to consider a spontaneous John Roberts act. However some spontaneity is named for now. His response to the Democratic senators was stiff and formulaic. If there’s a blueprint for addressing the problems now swirling across the courtroom, it has eluded a chief justice who may not have acquired the institutional capital to name on in a time of want.