World News | Walter Dellinger, Influential Scholar and Lawyer, Dies at 80
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. Walter E Dellinger, a noted constitutional scholar who argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court, served in top positions in the Justice Department and was a professor at Duke Law School, died Wednesday. He was 80.
Durham, Feb 16 (AP) Walter E Dellinger, a noted constitutional scholar who argued numerous cases before the Supreme Court, served in top positions in the Justice Department and was a professor at Duke Law School, died Wednesday. He was 80.
Dellinger died on Wednesday morning in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, his son Hampton Dellinger said.
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During the administration of former President Bill Clinton, Dellinger headed up the influential Office of Legal Counsel that advises the attorney general on often sensitive legal and policy issues and served as the acting Solicitor General, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer.
During his time as acting solicitor general during the 1996-97 term of the high court, he argued nine cases including those dealing with doctor-assisted suicide and the line-item veto, according to his Duke Law biography. Dellinger was an emeritus professor at Duke, where he had been a faculty member since 1969.
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"Walter lived a wonderful and extraordinary life. He had many loves, first among them his wife Anne but also the State and University of North Carolina, the law and the rule of law, and American democracy,” Hampton Dellinger said.
Dellinger was a leader of a legal team assembled by Democrats ahead of the 2020 presidential election to take on election-related court cases. And in early February, Dellinger spoke out in defense of Biden's pledge to name a Black woman to the Supreme Court in an essay published by the New York Times.
Dellinger was born in Charlotte and attended the University of North Carolina and Yale Law School. Early in his career, Dellinger served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black.
Numerous tributes were circulating in the hours after Dellinger's passing.
"Mourning the loss this morning of the great @walterdellinger -- wise counsellor, steadfast advocate, teacher and public servant -- a great mentor to me and so many others -- and a kind friend,” White House Chief of Staff Ronald Klain said on Twitter. (AP)
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