The Brethren Read Free Page A

of Appeals on Pennsylvania Avenue, almost midway between the White House and the Supreme Court. President Nixon, who had been in office only two weeks, had invited him to swear in several high-ranking government officials at the White House. When he arrived at the mansion, Burger was instantly admitted at the gate.
    * Congressional Quarterly's The Supreme Court: Justice and the Law, 2nd ed., p. 163.
    Nixon and Burger first met at the Republican National Convention in 1948. Nixon was a freshman Congressman and Burger was floor manager for his home-state candidate, Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen. At the next convention, four years later, Burger played an important role in Eisenhower's nomination. He was named assistant attorney general in charge of the Claims Division in the Justice Department, and in 1956 he was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.* On that famously liberal court, Burger became the vocal dissenter whose law-and-order opinions made the headlines. He was no bleeding heart or social activist, but a professional judge, a man of solid achievement
    Now at the White House, the ceremonial swearings-in lasted only a few minutes, but afterward the President invited Burger to the Oval Office. Nixon emphasized the fact that as head of the Executive Branch he was deeply concerned about the judiciary. There was a lot to be done.
    Burger could not agree more, he told the President.
    Nixon told him that in one of his campaign addresses he had used two points from a speech Burger had given in 1967 at Ripon College in Wisconsin. U.S. News & World Report had reprinted it under the title "What to Do About Crime in U.S." The men agreed that U.S. News was the country's best weekly news magazine, a Republican voice in an overwhelmingly liberal press. Burger had brought a copy of the article with him.
    In his speech Burger had charged that criminal trials were too often long delayed and subsequently encumbered with too many appeals, retrials, and other procedural protections for the accused that had been devised by the courts.
    * There are three levels of courts in the federal judiciary:
    —District Courts with about 600 judges; these judges, at the first step in the federal system, hear and try cases.
    —Circuit Courts of Appeal; there are eleven of these intermediate circuits numbered First (New England states) through Tenth (Western states) plus the Circuit for the District of Columbia. There are from four to fourteen appeals court judges in each circuit. These judges hear appeals from the district courts and interpret the Constitution, Supreme Court rulings and federal laws.
    —The Supreme Court, with nine members, reviews decisions made by both federal courts and state courts and handles other matters, such as disputes between states.
    Burger had argued that five-to-ten-year delays in criminal trials undermined the public's confidence in the judicial system. Decent people felt anger, frustration and bitterness, while the criminal was encouraged to think that his free lawyer would somewhere find a technical loophole that would let him off. He had pointed to progressive countries like Holland, Denmark and Sweden, which had simpler and faster criminal justice systems. Their prisons were better and were directed more toward rehabilitation. The murder rate in Sweden was 4 percent of that in the United States. He had stressed that the United States system was presently tilted toward the criminal and needed to be corrected.
    Richard Nixon was impressed. This was a voice of reason, of enlightened conservatism—firm, direct and fair. Judge Burger knew what he was talking about. The President questioned him in some detail. He found the answers solid, reflecting his own views, and supported with evidence. Burger had ideas about improving the efficiency of judges. By reducing the time wasted on routine administrative tasks and mediating minor pre - trial wrangles among lawyers, a judge could