Auction Name: 2026 February 26 Historical Manuscripts & Texana Signature® Auction

Lot Number: 47071

Shortcut to Lot: HA.com/6328*47071

Burger Court Signed Photo with Signatures from All Nine Justices. A full color photograph of the United States Supreme Court under Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, taken following the confirmation of Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981. Measures 15 x 13 1/4 inches (sight), matted and framed to an overall size of 9 1/4 x 17 1/2 inches. The photograph is mounted to a larger sheet and signed along the lower margin by each Justice, from left to right: John Paul Stevens, William H. Rehnquist, Harry G. Blackmun, Warren E. Burger, Lewis F. Powell Jr., Thurgood Marshall, Byron R. White, William J. Brennan Jr., and Sandra Day O'Connor. Each Justice's initials have been added in faint pencil below their names, and Burger's signature has been underlined with the annotation "CJ." With PSA letter of authenticity.

The Burger Court, which sat from 1969 to 1981, presided over a number of pressing civil rights cases. The court's decisions during this period included Roe v. Wade, deciding Americans' right to abortion access; United States v. Nixon, limiting the President's executive power in the wake of the Watergate Scandal; Milliken v. Bradley, deciding that desegregation mandates would apply only within school districts, not between them, enabling the period of "white flight" to suburbia that followed; and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, effectively allowing "affirmative action" practices to be implemented in higher education. Notably, Burger's court included the first African American Justice, Thurgood Marshall, and the first female Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor.

A striking image of an important court that issued many decisions that continue to shape the American political landscape to this day.

Condition: Not examined out of frame. Minor soiling to the edges of the mat and to the frame glass. Signatures very slightly faded. A few minor scuffs to the frame.

Include Thumbnail(s)