The late Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun ceded so much authority to his law clerks that it amounted to "a scandalous abdication of judicial responsibility," historian David Garrow asserts in an article out today. Using his research on Blackmun's papers, Garrow recounts cases in which clerks' memoranda show what he describes as an assertive tone and partisan rhetoric. At least one former clerk says that, after the more liberal justices left, Blackmun "wanted us to turn up the rhetorical heat a notch."
Details here from Tony Mauro of Legal Times via Law.com.