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John Paul Stevens Quotes

John Paul Stevens is an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1975 until his retirement in 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldest serving justice in the history of the Court, the third-longest serving Supreme Court Justice in history. Stevens was considered to have been on the liberal side of the Court at the time of his retirement.Born in Chicago, Stevens served in the United States Navy during World War II and graduated from Northwestern University School of Law. After clerking for Justice Wiley Blount Rutledge, he co-founded a law firm in Chicago, focusing on antitrust law. In 1970, President Richard Nixon appointed Stevens to the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Five years later, President Gerald Ford successfully nominated Stevens to the Supreme Court to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of Justice William O. Douglas. He became the senior Associate Justice after the retirement of Harry Blackmun in 1994. Stevens retired during the administration of President Barack Obama and was succeeded by Justice Elena Kagan.

Stevens's majority opinions in landmark cases include Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Apprendi v. New Jersey, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and Massachusetts v. EPA. Stevens is also known for his dissents in Texas v. Johnson, Bush v. Gore, D.C. v. Heller, and Citizens United v. FEC.

✵ 20. April 1920 – 16. July 2019
John Paul Stevens photo
John Paul Stevens: 10   quotes 0   likes

Famous John Paul Stevens Quotes

“A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.”

John Paul Stevens

Dissenting, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. ___ (2010).

“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”

John Paul Stevens

Dissenting, Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000).
Context: Time will one day heal the wound to that confidence that will be inflicted by today's decision. 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.

“Money is property; it is not speech.”

John Paul Stevens

Concurring, Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC, 528 U.S. 377 (2000).
Context: Money is property; it is not speech. Speech has the power to inspire volunteers to perform a multitude of tasks on a campaign trail, on a battleground, or even on a football field. Money, meanwhile, has the power to pay hired laborers to perform the same tasks. It does not follow, however, that the First Amendment provides the same measure of protection to the use of money to accomplish such goals as it provides to the use of ideas to achieve the same results.

“The ideas of liberty and equality have been an irresistible force in motivating leaders like Patrick Henry, Susan B. Anthony, and Abraham Lincoln, schoolteachers like Nathan Hale and Booker T. Washington, the Philippine Scouts who fought at Bataan, and the soldiers who scaled the bluff at Omaha Beach. If those ideas are worth fighting for -- and our history demonstrates that they are -- it cannot be true that the flag that uniquely symbolizes their power is not itself worthy of protection from unnecessary desecration.”

John Paul Stevens

Dissenting, Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989).

“[B]y 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.”

John Paul Stevens

Concurring in the judgment, Baze v. Rees, 553 U.S. 35 (2008).

“Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. … It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation--and their ideas from suppression--at the hand of an intolerant society. The right to remain anonymous may be abused when it shields fraudulent conduct. But political speech by its nature will sometimes have unpalatable consequences, and, in general, our society accords greater weight to the value of free speech than to the dangers of its misuse.”

John Paul Stevens

McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (Majority opinion, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)

John Paul Stevens Quotes

“Great works of literature have frequently been produced by authors writing under assumed names. Despite readers' curiosity and the public's interest in identifying the creator of a work of art, an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible. Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry.”

John Paul Stevens

McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (Majority opinion, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)

Fear , Art , Motivation , Idea

“On occasion, quite apart from any threat of persecution, an advocate may believe her ideas will be more persuasive if her readers are unaware of her identity. Anonymity thereby provides a way for a writer who may be personally unpopular to ensure that readers will not prejudge her message simply because they do not like its proponent.”

John Paul Stevens

McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission (Majority opinion, 514 U.S. 334 (1995)

Way , Idea , Personality

“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.”

John Paul Stevens

Concurring, Rita v. United States, 551 U.S. 338 (2007).

“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.”

John Paul Stevens

Dissenting, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. ___ (2010).

Money , People , Democracy , Sense

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