Justice Lewis F. Powell, Jr.: A Biography

The cooperation of Powell and his Supreme Court colleagues lends credibility to this judicious biography by one of his former law clerks, who now teaches at the University of Virginia School of Law. Powell, born in 1907, grew up in Virginia, ambitious and dutiful. From school lessons the author suggests stayed with him, Powell learned to respect both authority and the practical need to change. With perhaps too much detail, Jeffries discusses Powell's practice of law in Richmond, his role as school board chairman publicly reluctant to urge desegregation and his service as president of the American Bar Association. The author does not analyze the cases Powell judged, but looks closely at the most controversial ones regarding school busing, abortion, the Watergate tapes and, especially, the 1978 Bakke case, in which Powell's ``pragmatic conservative'' opinion outlawed a quota but endorsed racial preferences. Though Jeffries admires his subject's moderation and conscientiousness, he also criticizes him for hair-splitting distinctions and probes the Justice's regrets about cases involving capital punishment and homosexual sodomy. A portrait worthy of the man and his work. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)