William Rehnquist - Supreme court justice

Rehnquist took his oath of office on January 7, 1972. He soon proved himself to be the most conservative of Nixon's appointees, voting against legalized abortion in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. Rehnquist was one of the two dissenters in that famous case. Over the years, he earned the nicknames "Lone Ranger" and "Lone Dissenter" for his willingness to vote in line with his own political and legal beliefs. To this end, Rehnquist voted against school desegregation and in favor of school prayer, capital punishment and states' rights.
When Chief Justice Warren Burger retired in 1986, President Ronald Reagan nominated Rehnquist to fill the position, and the Senate confirmed his appointment 65-33. His associate justice seat was filled by Antonin Scalia. After 1989, when a "new right" majority had been established by President Reagan, Rehnquist framed a series of conservative rulings on abortion, affirmative action and capital punishment.

During his tenure as chief justice, Rehnquist scored a victory against the federal government in the 1995 decision in the United States v. Lopez case. The court ruled that a federal act that had made it unlawful to carry a gun in a school zone was unconstitutional. Rehnquist made headlines a few years later when he served as the presiding judge in the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton. In 2000, he was one of the supporters of the Supreme Court decision that ended the fight to recount contested votes in Florida in that year's presidential election in the Bush v. Gore case. Although he was expected to push the Supreme Court in a more conservative direction during his tenure, the Rehnquist court specifically declined to overrule Roe v.Wade and Miranda v. Arizona.

image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Rehnquist

1. https://www.oyez.org/justices/william_h_rehnquist

2. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/democracy/robes_rehnquist.html