Anytime you get nine people together, whether it’s at a party or it’s in the conference room of the Supreme Court, you do have to maintain some order, or it does kind of degenerate into squabbling pretty quickly.
JOHN ROBERTSAnytime you get nine people together, whether it’s at a party or it’s in the conference room of the Supreme Court, you do have to maintain some order, or it does kind of degenerate into squabbling pretty quickly.
JOHN ROBERTSYou don’t doubt that the lobby supporting the enactment of same sex-marriage laws in different states is politically powerful, do you? As far as I can tell, political figures are falling over themselves to endorse your side of the case.
JOHN ROBERTSI think judicial temperament is a willingness to step back from your own committed views of the correct jurisprudential approach and evaluate those views in terms of your role as a judge. It’s the difference between being a judge and being a law professor.
JOHN ROBERTSThe way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
JOHN ROBERTSThe States are separate and independent sovereigns. Sometimes they need to act like it.
JOHN ROBERTSI think judicial temperament is a willingness to step back from your own committed views of the correct jurisprudential approach and evaluate those views in terms of your role as a judge.
JOHN ROBERTSPeople, for reasons of their own, often fail to do things that would be good for them or good for society. Those failures – joined with the similar failures of others – can readily have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.
JOHN ROBERTSSenator, my answer is that the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court requires that nominees before this committee for a position on that court not forecast, give predictions, give hints, about how they might rule in cases that might come before the Supreme Court,.
JOHN ROBERTSI find that when I tell lawyer jokes to a mixed audience, the lawyers don’t think they’re funny and the non-lawyers don’t think they’re jokes.
JOHN ROBERTSBy ensuring that no one in government has too much power, the Constitution helps protect ordinary Americans every day against abuse of power by those in authority.
JOHN ROBERTSThe Romans had been able to post their laws on boards in public places, confidant that enough literate people existed to read them; far into the Middle Ages, even kings remained illiterate.
JOHN ROBERTSAn important function of the Supreme Court is to provide guidance, As a lower court judge, I appreciate clear guidance from the Supreme Court.
JOHN ROBERTSIf it’s a situation in which the public is being given access, you can’t discriminate against the media and say, as a general matter, that the media don’t have access, because their access rights, of course, correspond with those of the public.
JOHN ROBERTSJudges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them.
JOHN ROBERTSYou can’t fight for your rights if you don’t know what they are.
JOHN ROBERTSWe are always in awe of what the donors have done in terms of providing of themselves to the recipients. It really is a heroic act because people take on themselves not only a risk of death but also pain-and-suffering in order for their loved one to get the benefit of the liver transplant.
JOHN ROBERTS