Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist

Today the casket of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will be moved from the Supreme Court’s Great Hall on the Lincoln Catafalque (seen above) to St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C. where a funeral for friends and family will be held at 2:00 PM EST. From there Rehnquist will be buried in a private cerimony at Arlington National Cemetery.

Following are the details of the funeral courtesy of the Washingon Post.

SPEAKERS: President Bush, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, son James Rehnquist, daughter Nancy Spears and granddaughter Natalie Lynch.

OFFICIANTS: The Rev. George Evans Jr., the Rev. Jeff Wilson and the Rev. Jan Lookingbill of the Lutheran Church of the Holy Redeemer in McLean, Va. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, archbishop of Washington, will have welcoming remarks.

READERS: Rehnquist’s nephew Sam Laurin and cousin Don McLean.

RESTRICTIONS: Cameras will not be permitted at the funeral and no reporters are allowed at the burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

Quotes on the life of Chief Justice Rehnquist

As much as Americans have increasingly looked to Washington to solve problems, Rehnquist reminded them in his decisions that the basic wisdom of the American Revolution and the Constitution was to set boundaries on central power, and that federal authority especially should not be spread by judicial fiat.
—The Christian Science Monitor

In 1952, young William Rehnquist went to Washington as a clerk to Justice Robert Jackson. The Court that year was considering Brown v. Board of Education. The young Rehnquist took it upon himself to write a now-notorious memo to his boss, arguing mightily that Plessy, the New Orleans segregation precedent, “was right and should be reaffirmed.” Rehnquist lost the argument with his boss, but spent the rest of his career assailing what he later called “attempts on the part of this court to protect minority rights.”
—Bruce Shapiro

Rehnquist managed the court with a rare combination of efficiency and amiability, and the other Justices will miss him.
—John Cloud

Chief Justice William Rehnquist set back liberty, equality, and human rights perhaps more than any American judge of this generation.
—Alan Dershowitz

Were there room on his headstone, there are those who would like to see this epitaph: “William H. Rehnquist: He read the Constitution, understood its meaning, and so ruled.”
—Henry Mark Holzer

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