Ted Kennedy Quotes

Being a justice. If you love law the way I do... you're given the job of a lifetime... you're permitted to address the most important legal questions of the country, and sometimes the world. And in doing so, you make a difference in people's lives.

In the fifteen years since Earl Warren became Chief Justice, the Court has brought about more social change than most Congresses and most presidents.

What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become Justices of this Court that enables them to discern that a practice which the text of the Constitution does not clearly proscribe, and which our people have regarded as constitutional for 200 years, is in fact unconstitutional?

As we have seen from Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's example, even one justice can profoundly alter the meaning of those words for our citizens. Even one justice can deeply affect the rights and liberties of the American people.

Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has been the critical decisive vote on many issues that go to the heart of who we are as a nation.

In the job of a member of the Supreme Court of the United States, you're going to make decisions. You'll say things that some people are going to love them, some people are going to hate them. It's just part of the job. And so I respect the right of individuals to have strongly held opinions and to express those opinions in our country.

Activist Supreme Courts are not new. The Dred Scott decision in 1856, imposing slavery in free territories; the Plessy decision in 1896, imposing segregation on a private railroad company; the Korematsu decision in 1944, upholding Franklin Roosevelt’s internment of American citizens, mostly Japanese Americans; and the Roe decision in 1973, imposing abortion on the entire nation; are examples of the consequences of activist Courts and justices.

I'm really proud of this Supreme Court and the way they've been dealing with the issue of First Amendment political speech.

Certain characteristics about 'Marbury v. Madison' are, I think, indisputable. Marbury was the first Supreme Court decision ever to strike down an act of Congress as unconstitutional. Marbury stands for the authority of the Supreme Court to have and to exercise that power.

Judges wear legal professionalism and precedent as a mantel that secures legitimacy for their decisions. It's how they distinguish themselves from politicians or administrative agencies, while wielding power that is sometimes much greater than those democratically accountable actors.

The reversal of a Supreme Court opinion is possible.

I tried to decide each case based on the law and the Constitution.

Every generation gets the Constitution that it deserves. As the central preoccupations of an era make their way into the legal system, the Supreme Court eventually weighs in, and nine lawyers in robes become oracles of our national identity.

These people have elevated audacity to symphonic and operatic levels. The Florida Supreme Court relied on new law to resolve the election dispute down there.

My feeling is that the judge has a responsibility to the Constitution first, precedent second. Precedent is one factor. It is not the only factor. If it was the only factor, then, you know, we wouldn't have had Roe vs. Wade. We wouldn't have had Griswold. We wouldn't have had Lawrence. We wouldn't have had all these cases which the Left love.

So the danger of conservative judicial activism has been averted for another year. Stay tuned.

The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice.

No matter whether th' Constitution follows th' flag or not, the Supreme Coort follows th' iliction returns.

The Supreme Court has always been the last bastion of the protection of our freedoms.

A Supreme Court justice is sometimes a liberal on one issue and a conservative on another.

The Supreme Court is never very far from public opinion.

When the Chief Justice read me the oath and came to the words ‘support the Constitution of the United States’ I felt like saying: "Yes, but it's the Constitution as I understand it, flexible enough to meet any new problem of democracy--not the kind of Constitution your Court has raised up as a barrier to progress and democracy.”.

Justice Scalia was a lion of the law. Agree or disagree with him, all of his colleagues on the bench shared his wisdom and his humor. And like them, I miss him.

The Supreme Court overrules, distinguishes, and upholds prior precedents. Sometimes it ignores them. But it does not - cannot - 'defy' them.

What many people, I think, don't really understand is how much their rights really turn on the interpretation of the Supreme Court.