44 Facts About Byron White

Byron "Whizzer" Raymond White was an American lawyer, jurist, and professional football player who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1962 until 1993.

Byron White graduated from the University of Colorado Boulder as class valedictorian, attaining a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University.

Byron White eschewed work for a white-shoe firm and returned to Colorado in order to enter private practice in Denver as a transactional attorney.

Byron White was successfully nominated by Kennedy to the Supreme Court the next year, becoming its first justice from Colorado.

Byron White espoused a pragmatic and staunchly non-doctrinaire judicial philosophy which strengthened the powers of the federal government, advocated for the desegregation of public schools, and upheld the use of affirmative action.

Furthermore, White wrote the majority opinion in Bowers v Hardwick and similarly dissented in Runyon v McCrary and Planned Parenthood v Casey.

Byron Raymond White was born in Fort Collins, Colorado, on June 8,1917; he was the younger son of Maude Elizabeth and Alpha Albert White.

Sam, four years Byron White's senior, became an accomplished student and athlete that graduated as valedictorian, earning a scholarship to study at the University of Colorado where he was later elected by the university to become a Rhodes scholar.

Byron White excelled academically in high school, graduating in 1934 as the class valedictorian of his small class of six with the highest grades in the school's history.

In 1935, Sam Byron White was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University.

Byron White served as student body president his senior year, switched his major to the humanities, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and valedictorian from the University of Colorado in 1938 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.

Byron White remained closed in the affairs of politics, rarely speaking out and becoming estranged from other students; he prioritized his studies and physique above all else.

Byron White unexpectedly reunited with John F Kennedy, who was on his own tour of Europe with Torbert Macdonald, and on one occasion the three were heckled by a mob who recognized their English license plates.

Byron White would turn down an offer to join the editorship of the Yale Law Journal, instead taking a leave of absence to promptly return to professional football as a member of the Detroit Lions, again leading the league in rushing in 1940.

In July 1943, White was stationed at Noumea, New Caledonia, tasked with protecting Guadalcanal and Tulagi; he narrowly missed being assigned with John F Kennedy, his former acquaintance who had been stationed at Tulagi before being reassigned to the Russell Islands.

Byron White wrote the intelligence report on the sinking of future President John F Kennedy's PT-109.

Byron White was for the most part a transactional attorney; he drafted contracts and advised insolvent companies, and he argued the occasional case in court.

Byron White had first met the candidate when Byron White was a Rhodes scholar and Kennedy's father, Joseph Kennedy, was Ambassador to the Court of St James's.

Byron White took the lead in protecting the Freedom Riders in 1961, negotiating with Alabama Governor John Malcolm Patterson.

Byron White took the judicial oath of office on April 16,1962, and served until June 28,1993.

Byron White was fierce in questioning attorneys in court, and his votes and opinions on the bench reflect an ideology that has been notoriously difficult for popular journalists and legal scholars alike to pin down.

Byron White was seen as a disappointment by some Kennedy supporters who wished he had joined the more liberal wing of the court in its opinions on Miranda v Arizona and Roe v Wade.

Byron White often took a narrow, fact-specific view of cases before the Court and generally refused to make broad pronouncements on constitutional doctrine or adhere to a specific judicial philosophy, preferring what he viewed as a practical approach to the law.

Byron White consistently voted against creating constitutional restrictions on the police, dissenting in the landmark 1966 case Miranda v Arizona.

Byron White's jurisprudence has sometimes been praised for adhering to the doctrine of judicial restraint.

The Supreme Court pictured in 1973, Byron White is pictured at bottom right.

Byron White argued that the Court was "imposing its own philosophical predilections" on the state in this exercise of judicial power, although its historic "allergy to substantive due process" would never permit it to strike down a state's economic regulatory law in such a manner.

In Rostker v Goldberg, White joined Brennan and Marshall in dissent arguing that male-only Selective Service registration was unconstitutional.

In that case, Byron White voted to uphold Georgia's new capital punishment law.

Byron White's first reported Supreme Court decision was a dissent in Robinson v California, in which he criticized the Court for extending the reach of the Eighth Amendment.

Byron White voted to uphold affirmative action remedies to racial inequality in an education setting in the famous Regents of the University of California v Bakke case of 1978.

Byron White argued that the legislative history of 42 USC.

Byron White frequently urged the Supreme Court to consider cases when federal appeals courts were in conflict on issues of federal law, believing that resolving such was a primary role of the Supreme Court.

Byron White maintained chambers in the federal courthouse in Denver until shortly before his death.

Byron White served for the Commission on Structural Alternatives for the Federal Courts of Appeals.

Byron White died of pneumonia on April 15,2002, at the age of 84.

Byron White was the last living Justice to have served on the Warren Court, and the last justice appointed by Kennedy; he died the day before the fortieth anniversary of his swearing in as a Justice.

Byron White's remains are interred at All Souls Walk at the St John's Cathedral in Denver.

Byron White first met his wife Marion Stearns, the daughter of the president of the University of Colorado, when she was in high school and he was a college football player.

Byron White's older brother Clayton Samuel "Sam" White was a high school valedictorian and Rhodes Scholar.

Byron White later became a physician and medical researcher, particularly on the effects of atomic bomb blasts.

Byron White was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1952.

Byron White was made an honorary fellow of Hertford College, Oxford.

Byron White was inducted into the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Hall of Fame on July 14,2007, in addition to being a member of the College Football Hall of Fame and the University of Colorado's Athletic Hall of Fame, where he is enshrined as "The Greatest Buff Ever".