Trivial facts are often the best hints to what is going on.
JOHN ROBERTSTrivial facts are often the best hints to what is going on.
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 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 ROBERTSPeople, for reasons of their own, often fail to do things that would be good for them or good for society.
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 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 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 ROBERTSThe Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax.
JOHN ROBERTSThe way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.
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 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 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 ROBERTSThe Affordable Care Act’s requirement that certain individuals pay a financial penalty for not obtaining health insurance may reasonably be characterized as a tax.
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 ROBERTSJudges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them.
JOHN ROBERTS