Hard-as-Nails Justice White Softens a Touch at Farewell

Byron R. White, the Supreme Court’s hard-as-nails senior justice, formally retired Monday, saying that “there is no doubt I shall miss the court very much” after 31 years on the job.

White read from a letter he had written his eight fellow justices as he took the bench to close out the panel’s 1992-93 term.

“This court is a very small organization for the freight it carries, and its work is made possible only by the competent and dedicated service of those who work here,” White quoted from his letter.

White, 76, had announced his intention to retire last March. President Clinton has nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a federal appellate judge, to replace White.

His gravelly voice seemed to break when White concluded: “The court is a great institution, and I wish it well. It has been good to me.”

In a brief, courtroom farewell, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist read a letter in which he and White’s seven other colleagues said his retirement “has brought to each of us a profound sense of sadness.”

White, a former National Football League running back who was called a “scholar-athlete” by Rehnquist, built a reputation as a no-nonsense jurist.

By midmorning, White’s staff was finishing moving his office out of the high court’s Capitol Hill building to the Thurgood Marshall federal courts office building down the street.

White, meanwhile, traveled to his summer home in Denver.

The retired justice plans to sit on federal appellate court panels occasionally.

On a day in which the high court announced six decisions composed of 20 separate opinions, White said he hoped the court’s decisions “will be clear, crisp and leave those of us below with as little room as possible for disagreement about their meaning.”