THE NH SUPREME Court and the NHBF are hosting this year's John W. King Memorial Lecture, featuring an address by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Linda Greenhouse. The lecture takes place on Sept. 7 at 7:30 p.m., with a 6:30 p.m. reception, at the Frank R. Kenison Supreme Court Building in Concord. The presentation is by invitation, however, there is limited seating available for the public.

Greenhouse received a Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for "beat reporting" on the US Supreme Court for the New York Times. She has been the Supreme Court correspondent for the Times since 1978. In 1990, she was named senior writer. In other assignments for the newspaper, she has covered Congress and the New York State legislature.

Greenhouse is currently working on a biography of Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, and her research on the book will be part of the focus of her talk, along with discussion of current Supreme Court opinions. The Times reporter was one of two journalists allowed advanced access to the late judge's collected papers at the Library of Congress. The other was National Public Radio's Nina Totenberg. Greenhouse spent six weeks reading the documents for her much-acclaimed, 10-part series on Blackmun, which eventually led her to writing the book for publisher Henry Holt and Company, due out next spring.

"I want to give people an understanding of the US Supreme Court," says Greenhouse of her upcoming lecture. "I will also talk about my research. This biography is about Justice Blackmun's life as illuminated by these incredible documents. He kept a diary from ages 11 to 30. There is also an amazing treasure trove of correspondence between himself and Chief Justice Warren Burger, a lifelong friend from kindergarten on." She said that Blackmun's saved letters from Burger and the copies he made of his own letters to Burger "shed substantial new light on Warren Burger." Burger's papers will not be open to the public until 2026. Greenhouse points out that Blackmun's document collection is comprehensive. "He didn't throw away a single scrap of paper." In light of this, she is focusing her attention around some of Blackmun's landmark opinions, such as his defense of Roe v. Wade and his evolution on the death penalty.

She began her career at the Times as an assistant to the columnist James Reston as his assistant, after graduating in 1968 from Radcliffe College at Harvard. Immediately prior to covering the court, she spent a year at Yale Law School on a Ford Foundation fellowship and earned the degree of Master of Studies in Law. She has honorary degrees from Brown, Colgate, and Northeastern Universities and from the City University of New York.

In 2004, she received the Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism from Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.

The lecture series is named in honor of the late Hon. John W. King, who served as chief justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court from 1981 to 1985. King, a native of Manchester, had a long career in politics, serving in the N.H. House of Representatives from 1957 until 1963, when he became the first Democrat elected governor of New Hampshire in 40 years. He served six years, and then was named to the Superior Court by his successor, former Governor Walter Peterson. He served on the trial court until 1979, when he was elevated to the Supreme Court.

Following his retirement in 1985, King served as editor of the New Hampshire Bar Journal for several years, and was listed as its honorary editor-in-chief until his death in 1996.

The King lecture series was named in his honor in part as a testament to his dedication to encouraging thought and discussion on the law, court officials said.

For more information, or to inquire about public seating, please contact Laura Kiernan, NH Supreme Court public information officer, at (603) 271-2646 ext 359 or lkiernan@courts.state.nh.us.

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