Byron White

Byron White (June 8, 1917 - April 15, 2002) was best known as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed to the court by John F. Kennedy in 1962, he served until his retirement in 1993.

He was born in Fort Collins, Colorado and died in Denver at the age of 84 from complications of pneumonia.

In the 1930s, White played football for the University of Colorado, where he acquired the nickname "Whizzer". He was also a running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Detroit Lions, while putting himself through Yale law school, where he graduated first in his class. He won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford (Hertford College), where he met President Kennedy, who had come to visit White's father, then U.S. ambassador to Britain.

During his service on the high court, he was a vocal conservative. He consistently opposed restrictions on the police, dissenting in the landmark 1966 case of Miranda v. Arizona. He also dissented in the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade, and continued to call for overturning that decision.

White wrote the opinion in Bowers v. Hardwick, upholding Georgia's anti-sodomy law in 1986, which was viewed as a setback for gay rights.