The original Roe v. Wade decision also was leaked to the press

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2022/05/02/leak-time-magazine-roe-wade/

The original Roe v. Wade decision also was leaked to the press
By James D. Robenalt
Today at 11:48 p.m. EDT

While it may be the case, as Politico states, that “no draft decision in the modern history of the court has been disclosed publicly while a case was still pending,” it is not true that rulings have never been given to journalists before the announcement of the decision by the court. In fact, the result in Roe v. Wade itself was leaked by a Supreme Court clerk to a Time magazine reporter in January 1973. The issue of Time, with an article titled “The Sexes: Abortion on Demand,” appeared on newsstands hours before the decision was announced by Justice Harry Blackmun.

The Supreme Court clerk who leaked the story, Larry Hammond, told me about it when I interviewed him for my book “January 1973: Watergate, Roe v. Wade, Vietnam, and the Month That Changed America Forever.”

Hammond clerked for Justice Lewis Powell and played an important role in convincing Powell that the “viability” standard (when a fetus could live outside the womb) was the most supportable line to draw in determining when a state may not regulate a woman’s right to an abortion. Powell privately convinced Justice Harry A. Blackmun and ultimately a 7-to-2 majority to adopt the viability standard, and that has been at the heart of Roe and later Casey, which now appear to be on the verge of being reversed.

Hammond confided in an acquaintance he knew from the University of Texas School of Law that the Roe ruling was forthcoming. The acquaintance, a Time staff reporter named David Beckwith, was given the information “on background” and was supposed to write about it only once the opinion came down from the court. A slight delay in the ruling, however, resulted in an article that appeared in the issue of the magazine that hit newsstands a few hours before the opinion was read on Jan. 22, 1973.

Chief Justice Warren Burger was livid. The Supreme Court has always jealously guarded its opinions, and secrecy is critical to maintaining an evenhanded approach to dispensing justice. There are obvious and profound consequences if litigants and the public are tipped off to the result in a case before it has been formally announced and adopted.

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