Ex-Supreme Court Justice Byron White dies By Joan Biskupic, USA TODAY Matt Mendelsohn, USA TODAY Byron White was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Kennedy in 1962. Remembering Justice White Comments from current justices about the late Justice Byron R. White:



''Byron White was already a national hero to sports fans when I first met him in Pearl Harbor during World War II. I knew immediately that he was the kind of person that I would want as a friend.''  Justice John Paul Stevens.



''Justice White was an extraordinary man. His intellect and contributions as a justice of the Supreme Court spanned 31 years, and his careful imprint will be felt for a great many more years.''  Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.



''Anyone who ever met Byron White will recall his painfully firm handshake: you had to squeeze back hard or he would hurt you. I always thought that an apt symbol for his role on this court: he worked hard and well, and by doing so forced you to do the same.''  Justice Antonin Scalia.



''His physical strength and stature were powerful reminders of an even greater strength of character, character marked even from his youth by an unyielding dedication to America and its historic mission.''  Justice Anthony M. Kennedy.



''Justice White was a welcoming colleague and a solid friend. Like the others here, I will miss him.''  Justice David H. Souter.



''He was a great man, an outstanding member of the court and a wonderful friend.''  Justice Clarence Thomas.



''Upon my appointment, Justice White gave me the manual he used to guide work in chambers. A new justice could not have had a clearer, more sensible introduction to the ways of the court. I have kept the manual current and expect someday to pass it on to my successor.''  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.



''Justice White was a great judge and a thoroughly decent man - forceful, engaging and strongly committed to public service.''  Justice Stephen Breyer. Retired Supreme Court Justice Byron White, whose success as a scholar-athlete, military officer, John F. Kennedy confidante and long-tenured jurist made him an American hero for most of the 20th century, died Monday. He was 84. White died of complications from pneumonia at a nursing home in Colorado, where he first became a national figure as an All-American halfback at the University of Colorado in the 1930s. He went on to play professionally for the Pittsburgh Pirates (now the Steelers) and was one of the first big-money players in the National Football League, making $15,000 in 1938, the year he led the league in rushing yards. The college nickname of "Whizzer" would  to White's chagrin  endure even through his tenure in the Kennedy administration's Justice Department and as a member of the nation's highest court for 31 years. White, known for his fierce competitiveness, intelligence and commitment to public service, left his most significant legacy in the legal arena. Gruff- voiced with a legendary vice-grip handshake, White was a jurist who said he decided each case on its own merits and resisted broad judicial philosophies. Still, he was known for his regard for the power of Congress  an approach at odds with today's high court majority and its suspicion of expansive federal power. White was a consistent vote for federal affirmative action, for voting rights and for expanding the national government's authority over the states. But he dissented in some of the court's best-known liberal rulings. They included Miranda vs. Arizona, a 1966 decision in which the court required police to advise suspects in custody of their right to remain silent, and Roe vs. Wade in 1973, which made abortion legal nationwide. In 1986, White also was the author of the court's opinion in Bowers vs. Hardwick, in which the justices upheld a state criminal ban on sodomy and said that the U.S. Constitution does not protect private, consensual homosexual conduct. His tenure on the high court  the fourth-longest of the 20th century  began when President Kennedy appointed him in 1962 and ended when he retired in 1993. At the time, White said in his usual understated style that "someone else should be permitted to have a like experience." His successor was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then a Columbia law professor. White had been in declining health and had moved from Washington, D.C., back to Denver last year. Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who besides White was the court's only dissenter in the 7-2 Roe vs. Wade ruling, said in a statement Monday that White "came as close as anyone I have known to meriting (poet) Matthew Arnold's description of Sophocles: 'He saw life steadily and he saw it whole.' All of us who served with him will miss him." Last of the Warren court White's death closes out an era. He was the only living former justice and the last survivor of the historic court led by Chief Justice Earl Warren from 1953 to 1969. Through a broad reading of the Constitution, that court ushered in an era of school desegregation, created due-process safeguards for criminal defendants and laid the groundwork for rights to personal privacy and abortion. White voted with his then-brethren in holding an expansive view of the Constitution's authority to ensure equal protection under the law, particularly to end racial segregation. But he split from the Warren Court's majority on defendants' rights, vigorously siding with police and prosecutors, and he backed only a limited right to personal privacy. Before his appointment to the court, White was a deputy to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy. In one of his most celebrated actions, White took the lead for the Kennedy administration in the spring of 1961 to protect the Freedom Riders, the young blacks and whites protesting segregation in the South. A man of few, but firm, words, White personally faced down Alabama Gov. John Patterson, who was in league with the Ku Klux Klan and would not guarantee protection for the Freedom Riders. The civil-rights activists had been pulled from the buses and beaten by Klansman and other locals while traveling across Alabama. John Kennedy first met White in England in 1939, when White was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford and Kennedy's father, Joseph, was the U.S. ambassador to the Court of St. James. Then, during World War II, White was a Navy intelligence officer in the South Pacific and wrote the official report of the sinking of Kennedy's boat, the PT-109. University of Chicago law professor Dennis Hutchinson, who wrote a biography of White, said that in an era that lionized judicial reformers such as Warren, "Byron White was a nonconformist." He said White once told a friend that "judges have an exaggerated view of their role in our polity." "He didn't fit the role of an intellectual, ethereal judge," Hutchinson said in an interview. "He was a looming physical presence. He went after arguments aggressively, wrestling them to the ground." On the bench, White was a fierce questioner and seemed to delight in backing a lawyer into a corner. When an evasive advocate had to concede a point, White would swing back in his chair, a look of victory spread across his face. Muscular and just over 6 feet tall, White didn't walk as much as sprint. And even though he detested references to his athletic prowess, it was always there. At the Supreme Court he sometimes could be heard heading to the top-floor gym, bouncing a basketball on the marble floors along the way. After he retired in 1993, he helped federal appeals courts hear cases. In the end, after serving under three chief justices, White said he felt most comfortable on the conservative Rehnquist Court. Decades earlier, he had said of his relationship to the more liberal Warren, "I wasn't exactly in his circle." White was born on June 8, 1917, in Fort Collins, Colo. He grew up in nearby Wellington, where his father, Albert White, was a lumber dealer and mayor. His mother was Maude Burger White. Like his only sibling, older brother Clayton Samuel, White ranked first in his high school class and won a scholarship to the University of Colorado. During his senior year, White was student body president and a star athlete in football, basketball and baseball. It was while he was a college gridiron star that a newspaper columnist dubbed him "Whizzer White." AP file Former Supreme Court Justice Byron "Whizzer" White was runner-up in voting for the 1937 Heisman Trophy. After graduating from the university in 1938, he played pro ball in Pittsburgh and quickly became a star, leading the NFL in rushing as a rookie with 567 yards in 11 games. But he was uncomfortable with the scrutiny that came with being the league's highest-paid player. White went to Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship in 1939 but when World War II erupted, he returned to the United States. He alternated between playing pro football and studying law at Yale University. But then White interrupted his academic and athletic pursuits to join the Navy in 1942. His first choice was the Marines, but colorblindness kept him out. He was awarded two Bronze Stars. White returned to New Haven and graduated from Yale law school in 1946, magna cum laude. He immediately landed a coveted position as a law clerk to Chief Justice Fred Vinson. In 1946, White married Marion Stearns, the daughter of the then-president of the University of Colorado. The Whites eventually would have a son and daughter. After his one-term clerkship, White returned home and practiced law for a large firm in Denver. The state Democratic party urged him to run for various state and national offices, Congress and governor, but he refused. In 1960 he helped with Kennedy's presidential campaign, drumming up support for the senator in Colorado and other western states. When Kennedy won, White became deputy attorney general and immediately played a leading role in the efforts to desegregate schools and integrate public accommodations. The following year, when Justice Charles Whittaker retired, Kennedy nominated White, apparently with little hesitation. "He has excelled at everything," the president said at the time. "And I know that he will excel on the highest court in the land." In marked contrast to the divisive affairs that Supreme Court nominations are today, the Senate approved White, then 44, by a voice vote. He was sworn in as a justice 40 years ago today. By the end of his tenure, White often was described as evolving into a jurist far more conservative than Kennedy might have envisioned. But when he stepped down, the liberal era was long gone and the majority was more inclined to leave society's problems to elected lawmakers. White's most controversial decision was his 1986 majority opinion upholding Georgia's ban on consensual homosexual conduct. Yale University law professor Kate Stith, who was a law clerk to White 1978-79, said White saw the issue in the same way he saw abortion rights. "The question was whether the court should bypass political institutions to establish a new social order," Stith said. "His answer was no." Stith added, "He should be remembered as a person who put the institution of the court and the welfare of the country ahead of his own ambition and reputation. He was personally very modest. He played an important role in many areas of the law but he was not looking for personal fame." White is survived by his wife, Marion, and son Charles Byron White and daughter Nancy White Lippe. In death, as in life, White is likely to be recalled by many for his legendary athletic ability, says Hutchinson. The biographer notes that when White was in a restaurant in the 1960s, nearly three decades after he had played football, a waitress asked, "Say, aren't you Whizzer White?" White answered, "I was."