Hello, I am Harry Blackmun and I served as an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court for 24 years after being appointed by President Richard Nixon in 1970. I grew up in Minnesota and was good friends with Warren Burger, who later served on along side me on the Supreme Court as the Chief Justice. My judicial philosophy was a conservative one, although I was later accused of becoming more and more liberal over the years; I think the court just got more conservative! In regards to the First Amendment, I was a passionate proponent of the separation of church and state, believing that the government should not take a stance one way or the other on religion, and commercial speech, believing that First Amendment rights also applied to advertising (although it certainly still needed some regulations). The case I am most famous for is the Roe v. Wade case of 1973, where I contributed in the decision that the government cannot restrict abortion rights. As was to be expected, I received a lot of criticism from conservatives over this decision.
Sources:
- http://www.oyez.org/justices/harry_a_blackmun
- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Justice_Blackmun_Official.jpg
- http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/rights/robes_blackmun.html
- http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/justice-blackmuns-legacy-lives-on-in-church-state-commercial-speech-decisions
