Blackmun’s papers opened on 5th anniversary of his death

The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s extensive records from 24 years on the court were opened Thursday, March 4, on the fifth anniversary of his death. Interested parties gathered in the reading room at the Library of Congress to rifle through boxes containing the documents.

It turns out that the Roe v. Wade decision, which Blackmun had written in 1973, came closer to being overturned in 1992 than any of us suspected, as the court deliberated the case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey that year.

The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s extensive records from 24 years on the court were opened Thursday, March 4, on the fifth anniversary of his death. Interested parties gathered in the reading room at the Library of Congress to rifle through boxes containing the documents.

It turns out that the Roe v. Wade decision, which Blackmun had written in 1973, came closer to being overturned in 1992 than any of us suspected, as the court deliberated the case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey that year.It has been more than ten years since the posthumous opening of Thurgood Marshall’s papers, revealing intimate details of the court’s inner workings. Blackmun, like Marshall, served 24 years on the court, retiring in 1994. He accumulated far more correspondence than Marshall. According to Washington lawyer David Frederick, Blackmun “took copious notes and never threw away any of his papers.”

Upon retirement, Justice Blackmun donated all 530,000 items in his personal archive to the Library of Congress, stipulating their release five years after his death.

Read more about the Blackmun papers’ revelations about the 1992 Casey ruling in this AP story, Papers: Roe v. Wade was almost overturned.