ABSTRACT
President Richard M. Nixon replaced Earl Warren with Warren E. Burger as chief justice in 1969. Burger was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, September 17, 1907, and he worked his way through the University of Minnesota and Saint Paul College of Law, graduating magna cum laude from law school in 1931. An articulated priority of Richard M. Nixon was to neutralize the Warren Court's expansion of rights afforded criminal defendants. He wanted Warren Burger to lead the Court to decisions different from those in the Warren era. Burger performed as expected on criminal rights issues, supporting capital punishment, criticizing the exclusionary rule, and seeking to limit the scope of the Miranda doctrine. Burger was a highly visible chief justice. He tended to assign to himself the task of writing the majority opinion in major cases, such as the decision on executive privilege in United States v. Nixon, 418 US 683.
