Words matter. These are the best John Paul Stevens Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
If you’re interested in the job and in the kind of work that’s done, you have to have an interest in who’s going to fill your shoes.
There was a fear among the original framers that the federal government would be so strong that they might destroy the state militias.
It almost seems I was writing two separate books, the first one about the time before I went on the court and the second one about the many, many terms I was on the court.
Colonial history contains many examples of firearm regulations in urban areas that imposed obstacles to their use for protection of the home.
All I can say is I did the best I could, and I didn’t do well enough on many occasions.
For over 200 years after the adoption of the Second Amendment, it was uniformly understood as not placing any limit on either federal or state authority to enact gun control legislation.
I play duplicate bridge and I play golf and I go swimming once in a while.
District of Columbia v. Heller, which recognized an individual right to possess a firearm under the Constitution, is unquestionably the most clearly incorrect decision that the Supreme Court announced during my tenure on the bench.
I always prided myself on my ability to choose good clerks, and one of the key elements was whether I thought I would like the person.
Of course, when I joined the Navy and when I took up the correspondence course in cryptography, I had to sign an oath that I would never reveal what sort of work I was involved in. It was only some years after the war that Congress passed a statute relieving me of that obligation.
Sam Alito replacing Justice O’Connor was a very significant change. He is much more conservative. And, as for John Roberts, he is much more in the direction of protecting the rights of very rich people to donate money to campaigns than Bill Rehnquist ever was.
I think maybe the people in elected positions are more interested in preserving their jobs than in doing the best job possible.
But I wound like people to think I was an honest judge and a good judge. And I always tried the reach the best result in every case.
It is not our job to apply laws that have not yet been written.
To make a coverage decision, doesn’t one have to make a medical judgment?
They may not be conscripted against their will as the foot soldiers in a federal crusade.
During my years as a practicing lawyer, it just was part of your study of what Congress was trying to say in their statutes. I never really considered judges or scholars as either those who used legislative history or those who were opposed to it until after I got on the court.
When I signed on to letting the death penalty back in, I thought the procedural protections against executing an innocent person were stronger than they turned out to be.
Public officials, including state legislators, have a duty to act impartially.
