John Paul Stevens
To make a coverage decision, doesn't one have to make a medical judgment?Collection: Medical
While money is used to finance speech, money is not speech.Collection: Finance
The government must pursue a course of complete neutrality toward religion.
They may not be conscripted against their will as the foot soldiers in a federal crusade.
I think maybe the people in elected positions are more interested in preserving their jobs than in doing the best job possible.
All I can say is I did the best I could, and I didn't do well enough on many occasions.
To show a 'well-founded fear of persecution', an alien need not prove that it is more likely than not that he or she will be persecuted in his or her home country.
It is not our job to apply laws that have not yet been written.
The practice of executing such offenders is a relic of the past and is inconsistent with evolving standards of decency in a civilized society.
Although NFL teams have common interests such as promoting the NFL brand, they are still separate, profit-making entities, and their interests in licensing team trademarks are not necessarily aligned.
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.
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.
I had been born a Republican. My dad was an active Republican, but he was not active in politics and I really never was either. It's true that I did belong to that party, but it really had very little impact on my public work or my private views.
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.
Well, in my job, I avoid political commentary.
I'm a person who plays Ping-Pong once in a while.
I have been opposed to ceremonies at the White House. It gives the impression that the court is subordinate to the executive, which I think is quite wrong.
I play duplicate bridge and I play golf and I go swimming once in a while.
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.
Public officials, including state legislators, have a duty to act impartially.
I am not a fan of President Trump, I should say. I wouldn't try to comment on every particular issue in which we disagree, but there are plenty of them.
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.
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 announced my dissent in the Citizens United orally, and I stumbled in my announcement. I had a little difficulty expressing myself. And that was out of character.
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.
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.
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.
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.
When I joined the Supreme Court in 1975, both state and federal judges accepted the Court's unanimous decision in United States v. Miller as having established that the Second Amendment's protection of the right to bear arms was possessed only by members of the militia and applied only to weapons used by the militia.
Colonial history contains many examples of firearm regulations in urban areas that imposed obstacles to their use for protection of the home.
At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.Collection: Government
I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. ... I am in earnest - I will not equivocate - I will not excuse - I will not retreat a single inch - AND I WILL BE HEARD.Collection: Writing
Our love cannot be measured, it just is.Collection: Our Love
A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.Collection: Believe
It might be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their ‘personhood’ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of ‘We the People’ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.Collection: People
Whenever we remove a brick from the wall that was designed to separate religion and government, we increase the risk of religious strife and weaken the foundation of our democracy.Collection: Religious
One thing, however, is certain. Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.Collection: Years
Even in high school, a rule that permits only one point of view to be expressed is less likely to produce correct answers than the open discussion of countervailing views.Collection: School
The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship.Collection: Expression
As a matter of constitutional tradition, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we presume that governmental regulation of the content of speech is more likely to interfere with the free exchange of ideas than to encourage it. The interest in encouraging freedom of expression in a democratic society outweighs any theoretical but unproven benefit of censorship.Collection: Government
Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority.Collection: Majority
I think this country would be much better off if we did not have capital punishment.... We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.Collection: Country
When the commission finds that a pig has entered the parlor, the exercise of its regulatory power does not depend on proof the pig is obscene.Collection: Exercise
Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom, so also the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority.Collection: Majority
After all, a district judge who gives harsh sentences to Yankees fans and lenient sentences to Red Sox fans would not be acting reasonably even if her procedural rulings were impeccable.Collection: Yankees
By requiring that an execution be relatively painless, we necessarily protect the inmate from enduring any punishment that is comparable to the suffering inflicted on his victim. This trend, while appropriate and required by the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, actually undermines the very premise on which public approval of the retribution rationale is based.Collection: Punishment
But I really think it's a very unfortunate part of our judicial system and I would feel much, much better if more states would really consider whether they think the benefits outweigh the very serious potential injustice, because in these cases the emotions are very, very high on both sides and to have stakes as high as you do in these cases, there is a special potential for error. We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.Collection: Thinking
To show a well-founded fear of persecution, an alien need not prove that it is more likely than not that he or she will be persecuted in his or her home country.Collection: Country
Although it may not be a castle, [it is the] functional equivalent of a hotel room, a vacation and retirement home or a hunting and fishing cabin.Collection: Retirement