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Still, the "Warren court" is not merely a title of convenience. The 14th Chief Justice has all along given the court his own stamp and subtly molded the shape of its decisions. In choosing Justices to write the majority opinion—a power that Warren used most astutely—he could usually determine, within broad guidelines, the direction the opinion would take. By a careful selection, he could also sway a vote or two, averting a disputed 5-to-4 vote that would leave lawyers wondering whether they could, by slightly changing their argument, get a different result the next time round. Whatever his methods, Warren made the court less contentious than it was under his mediocre predecessor, Fred Vinson; 32% of the written decisions were returned unanimously during the 1966-1967 term, compared with 18% during Vinson's last (1952-53) term.
Is It Fair? Warren's forte—unlike that of Holmes, Brandeis, Frankfurter or Abe Fortas of today's court—was not legal analysis. One law professor who admires him says that "he doesn't have the intellectual qualities for the law faculty of any good law school." While other Justices never let on what they are thinking when they hear oral arguments, Warren's feelings, says Berkeley Professor David Feller, "are right there on his shirtsleeves. You can see them right through the robe." Impatient when lawyers cited obscure legal precedents to buttress their cases, the pragmatic Chief Justice would often ask simply: "Yes, but is it fair?"
Oddly enough, John Marshall, the greatest Chief Justice, was also less concerned with the narrow legalisms that make a "lawyer's lawyer" than with the broader concept of justice. Marshall is the Chief Justice most often compared to Warren, and his court the one most often likened to Warren's. "In the past," says Kurland, "the court has been a brake rather than an accelerator. This has been the first court since Marshall's to turn back to this role of an accelerator."
* Ideological convictions aside, his dislike of Nixon dates back to the 1952 G.O.P. convention, when Warren, then California's Governor, was seeking the presidential nomination and Nixon was a member of the delegation pledged to him. Nixon, then a freshman Senator, made known his preference for Eisenhower, winning for himself the vice presidential nomination—and Warren's wrath. "Nixon plays for keeps," the Chief Justice once said, "but his keeps are for himself."