WASHINGTON -- With much of its experience and boldness drained by high turnover, a very "junior" Supreme Court opens a new term tomorrow facing a rare assignment for an institution usually known for its seniority: on-the-job training.
After years of being dominated by justices with many years of service, the court seems nearly brand-new: seven of the nine justices have taken their seats in the past 13 years, and five of them -- a complete numerical majority -- have been seated in the past six years.
It also is no longer controlled by justices with strong wills and ambitious ideological agendas, but rather by an ever-expanding middle bloc of moderates who shift this way and that, who are rarely predictable, seldom daring and seemingly always devoted deciding even major cases in as limited a way as possible.
Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, in a public ceremony Friday on the eve of his 70th birthday, took note of "the rapid rate of change" on the court in recent years and the fact that he has just become the senior justice in service.
Wryly, he said: "It makes me feel very ancient indeed."
He spoke just before swearing in new Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who had his 56th birthday in August and whose arrival lowered the average age of the justices from 63 to 60. Only two, Mr. Rehnquist and John Paul Stevens, are 70 or over. Mr. Stevens, at 74, is the oldest.
Georgetown University law professor Vicki C. Jackson, referring to "the relative newness of the court," said, "It is in for a period of adjusting, with people bumping around and finding out" how to react to one another.
There are other vivid indications of that "relative newness":
* Chief Justice Rehnquist has more time on the bench than all six of the most junior justices combined -- his 23 years to their total of 22.
* The average length of service of all nine justices is just 8 1/2 years, and Chief Justice Rehnquist himself has headed the court for just eight years after being promoted during the Reagan administration.
* The justice who now has risen to third in seniority -- Sandra Day O'Connor -- took just 13 years to reach that point; Chief Justice Rehnquist did not achieve that rank until he had been on the court 20 years.
'Narrow' vision
It is not a court, however, that is likely to exhibit the brashness of youth, according to many who follow its history closely.
"It is," American Civil Liberties Union legal director Steven R. Shapiro said, "a court whose general approach to the law is incremental and cautious. Its opinions and its constitutional vision are relatively narrow."
And, he and many other observers have noted, it is a court that is giving itself comparatively little to do.
Although the court has volunteered to take on in the new term some disputes heavy with importance and mired deep in controversy, such as the constitutionality of term limits for members of Congress, it has not opted to rule on very many overall.
Unless it steps up the pace of adding to its caseload, the court may decide fewer than 80 disputes by next summer -- about half of the work it was turning out as recently as the early 1980s.
"This is a court," said the ACLU's Mr. Shapiro, "that will deal with controversy when it must, but it is not seeking it out."
Diminished role
The court, some analysts say, is simply scaling itself down to the diminished role that many Americans want.
Georgetown law professor L. Michael Seidman suggested, somewhat gloomily, "There is no political constituency for having an important Supreme Court any more; there is a broad consensus that the court should no longer play a central role in American political life."
Being led by a bloc of centrists gives the court as a whole a personality that seems to reflect that of new Justice Breyer who, in Mr. Seidman's words, is "analytical, careful and cool."
Said Richard G. Taranto, a lawyer in a Washington firm specializing in cases before the court: "Consumers of Supreme Court opinions seeking clarity are not getting it. This court
seems to look for very narrow, fact-bound ways to decide cases. There is an unwillingness to lay down broad principles."
Moderate bloc
The middle bloc of the court remains anchored in Justices O'Connor, Anthony M. Kennedy and David H. Souter -- all chosen by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan or George Bush, both of whom were determined to diminish the court's role in the nation's public life by naming judges willing to leave more major problems for the politicians to solve.
President Clinton's first nominee, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, lined up comfortably with that bloc much of the time in her opening year on the court, according to many court experts.
And new Justice Breyer is expected to do so, too.
No 'liberal wing'
"There is no longer a liberal wing," Mr. Shapiro concluded flatly. Professor Seidman speculated that Mr. Clinton's two nominees are unlikely to do much to pursue a liberal agenda pent up during 12 years of court appointments by conservative Republican presidents.
The nominees by Mr. Clinton are already projecting images of RTC caution and conservatism, the professor said.
The last of the predictably liberal justices of the modern court probably was Justice Breyer's predecessor, retired Justice Harry Blackmun.
Washington lawyer Edward W. Warren has commented that the switch from Justice Blackmun to Justice Breyer meant "the replacement of a 19th-century romantic with a 20th-century technocrat."
But, Mr. Warren added quickly, "Breyer is not a bloodless or heartless technocrat."
Lively debates predicted
Many court analysts have placed Justice Breyer on a high shelf of intellectual attainment, along with conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, and have predicted that the Breyer-Scalia duo will produce lively public debates.
But, in the past two terms in particular, the court's moderates have found in their ranks a strong and intellectually gifted justice ready to match wits with Justice Scalia: Justice Souter, who has begun to shed an initial shyness and seems to enjoy a more combative role.
Conservative court analysts had been hoping that the retirement in recent years of liberal justices such as Justices Blackmun, William J. Brennan Jr. and Thurgood Marshall would lead to more distinctly conservative decisions.
That seems not to have happened, at least not yet.
There is a fairly wide perception that Justice Scalia has been unable to muster the votes for a strong conservative counterrevolution against the civil rights legacy left behind by the court of the late Chief Justice Earl Warren in the 1950s and '60s, and the women's rights gains that began to be made during the 1969-1986 tenure of the court of now-retired Chief Justice Warren E. Burger.
Moreover, the centrist justices who now hold the key votes have not appeared to be ready to cast precedents aside in a wholesale way. For example, Justices O'Connor, Kennedy and Souter provided the leadership as well as the deciding votes two years ago that kept the court from overruling the 1973 decision creating a woman's right to seek an abortion.
Legacy insecure
Still, some of the legacy of the Warren and Burger courts appears to be less than secure, even with a court controlled by moderates. Arthur J. Kropp, president of the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, said: "The civil rights community is holding its breath in the hope that the centrist majority on the court will stand firm on civil rights."
Some analysts contend that the present court's most likely conservative imprint would come in dismantling much of the system of "affirmative action" -- awarding public benefits or opportunities on the basis of race or sex.
Mr. Seidman, the Georgetown professor, said he believes that a major 1990 ruling upholding Congress' power to give racial minorities a preference in public works projects "is just down the tubes."
The court in fact has agreed to hear a challenge by a white-owned highway contracting company to that ruling.
The 1990 decision, Mr. Seidman commented, "was one of the last incredible monuments to Justice Brennan's incredible ability come up with five votes" for a liberal outcome.
The court also has begun to raise serious doubts that it will continue to allow state legislatures to use race as a controlling factor in drawing up new congressional districting plans in order to assure the election of black or other minority candidates.
Laughlin McDonald, director of the ACLU's voting rights project, said that the court has already given "a green light to those who wished to challenge" those "safe" districts for minority candidates.
If the court now moves further to curb that kind of districting, Mr. McDonald added, it could threaten the political futures of all 17 black members of Congress from the South: All were elected in black-dominated districts.
MAJOR ISSUES FOR THE JUSTICES
CASES ALREADY BEFORE THE COURT
Term limits: Constitutionality of state-imposed limits on the number of terms members of Congress may serve.
Affirmative action: Scope of Congress' power to consider race, sex and other personal characteristics in granting access to government benefits.
Political campaigns: Constitutionality of state laws forbidding anonymous political literature.
School desegregation: Duty of formerly segregated public-school district to raise students' academic performance before it can be declared sufficiently integrated.
CGun control: Constitutionality of federal ban on carrying guns in a school or nearby.
Job rights: Right of employers to escape payment of damages or rehiring workers who were victims of bias on the job, if other reasons for firing them can be found after the fact.
BBeer labels: Constitutionality of federal law forbidding breweries to spell out on beer-can labels how much alcohol there is.
Government workers: Constitutionality of flat ban on payment for outside writing and speeches of federal employees.
Innocence: Test of the proof that a state-prison inmate must produce to get a federal court to hear a claim that the inmate did not commit the crime.
Child pornography: Test of the proof the government must offer to get a conviction of a distributor of child pornography.
Frequent fliers: Right of airline passengers to sue airlines for damages for changing frequent-flier plans.
ISSUES IN THE OFFING
AGays in the military: The power of the military to discharge gays or lesbians solely for saying they are homosexual.
Minorities in Congress: Constitutionality of new congressional districts drawn to create "safe" districts for minority candidates.
ASingle-sex education: Constitutionality of male-only restrictions at two military academies -- Virginia Military Institute and the Citadel.
School prayers: Constitutionality of student-led prayers at public-school graduations.
AAbortion clinics: Constitutionality of new federal law that makes it a crime to try to close down abortion clinics.