For years, Stevens was known for his numerous dissents because he disagreed not only with how the majority decided a case, but how his fellow dissenters came to their conclusions. The notion that judges should treat all racial classifications alike, he told me, doesnt make any sense., Abortion is another area in which Stevens has insisted on the duty of the government to act impartially rather than favoring some groups over others for sectarian reasons. The Role of Worldview in the Judicial Decisions of Justice Paul Stevens I think Ive made some awfully good assignments, to tell you the truth, in dissents, Stevens told me, citing Ginsburgs opinions in the cases last term about pay discrimination and the procedure known as partial-birth abortion. And abandoning his initial, case-by-case approach, he began, as he gained confidence on the court, to develop a compelling judicial vision. Called upon time after time to stop or delay an execution, the justices come to know this aspect of criminal law perhaps more closely than any other. John Paul Stevens | Biography, Supreme Court, & Facts And for him, the death penalty, while perhaps defensible in theory as the ultimate penalty for the ultimate crime, proved over his tenure to be haphazard and mistake-prone in its application and, as plenty of evidence showed, racially discriminatory. He notably dissented in, The Culture of Encounter and the Global Agenda, Politicization of Religion in Global Perspective, Religion and the Crisis of Displaced Persons, Transatlantic Policy Network on Religion and Diplomacy, Intercultural and Interreligious Dialogue, Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe, The Religious Neutrality of Justice John Paul Stevens. I dont believe in suppressing dissent, he told me. Since Stevens joined the court, he has also been the only justice routinely to write the first drafts of his own opinions the other justices have generally relied on clerks to write their first drafts and then rewritten (or at least edited) the drafts to various degrees. I suggested that someone who held Stevenss views would never be appointed by a Republican president today. 5 Ways John Paul Stevens Made a Mark on the Supreme Court None of these shortcomings, of course, was unique to Justice Stevens. Material from The New York Times is included in this report. He suggested that in most cases, justices cannot be swayed to change their votes once they make up their minds, and when they can be swayed, it is only as a result of legal arguments, not charm or charisma. I dont know if Im entitled to the credit or Tonys entitled to the credit, because he wrote an exceptional opinion. In other cases, Stevens has written the majority opinion himself in an effort to shore up Kennedys vote. When that happens, a judge will sometimes manipulate those rules to achieve the desired result in a particular case, causing confusion for lower courts and lawyers everywhere. But he went on to say that his conclusion did not justify a refusal to respect precedents that remain a part of our law.. By treating inmates as no more than slave[s], the majority decision demeans the concept of liberty itself, Stevens wrote. On that, Justice Stevens saw no evil, heard no evil, and did lots of evil; he was consistently on the wrong side of those questions, Epstein said. But over time he became the Jedi Master of cobbling together majority opinions in favor of his liberal views, even as the court around him grew increasingly conservative. He was a fellow Midwesterner, honest, self-effacing and kind, but with a strong independent streak and a passion for justice. This social environment probably helps to account for an apparent drift to the left by Republican-appointed Justices such as John Paul Stevens, David Souter, and especially Harry Blackmun. In the course of his investigation, Stevens discovered that a third Illinois Supreme Court justice, who was not under suspicion for bribery, had originally written a dissent from the disputed decision that he decided not to publish, in the interest of maintaining collegiality. John F. Kennedy Commissioned Apr 12, 1962 Sworn in Apr 16, 1962 Seat 7 Reason for leaving Retired . But a Democratic president would be unlikely to choose a candidate from among the liberal philosopher kings, because a political constituency no longer exists to support the 1960s-era notion that the courts are equipped to reconstruct American society along egalitarian lines. In 1980, he dissented from the courts decision upholding racial preferences in federal contracting, explosively comparing them with the Nazi laws excluding Jews from citizenship. Stevens, however, is an improbable liberal icon. Thats the kind of issue I shouldnt comment on, either in private or in public! he said with a smile. At the same time, the court had to decide whether to uphold or strike down the law governing the death penalty in Texas. Stevenss successor should share his dedication to preserving the deeply rooted precedents of the past, and that dedication reflects his sensibility and character more than his personal politics. Justice Stevens, the oldest and arguably most liberal justice, now finds himself the leader of the opposition. Stevens has taken that role himself to write narrow but forceful rulings striking down President George W. Bushs policies toward terrorism detainees, or broad rulings such as banning capital punishment for the mentally retarded. Unlike his colleagues, for example, Stevens did not let his law clerks join the common pool of shared clerks who collectively review the more than 7,000 petitions that the court receives each year from litigants and make recommendations to the full court about which cases should be heard. Justice Stevenss retirement gives President Obama a second opportunity to name a justice, and it means the nation is likely to see a confirmation battle for the second summer in a row. He just had five votes on his side!, Stevens himself, however, has been notably successful in building majorities by courting his fellow justices in particular, Kennedy. Only later, because of the reaction that followed Roe, did abortion become a central issue in national politics. What is precession and What are some of its possible consequences? It's time to renew your membership and keep access to free CLE, valuable publications and more. Justice Stevens wrote separately in that 2005 case, Roper v. Simmons, to affirm his belief that constitutional interpretation is and must be an evolving process. Forty years later, at the age of 96, Justice Stevens returned to HLS for the last time to serve as a justice for the final round of Harvard Law Schools 2016 Ames Moot Court Competition. After the chief justice speaks, each of the remaining justices speaks in order of seniority, so that Stevens speaks second. Best Answer Copy John Paul Stevens' judicial decisions reflect a conservative ideology. Michael Kessler is executive director of the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, an associate professor of the practice of moral and political theory in the Department of Government, and an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown Law. He was convicted in 1933, but the conviction was overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court the next year. Of course, I didnt realize at the time we wrote it that the independent counsel was going to get involved, and we didnt realize that the president wasnt going to tell the truth!, Nevertheless, Stevens insisted, it wasnt fair to blame the court for having precipitated Clintons impeachment. In an interview last week, he said that every one of the dozen justices appointed to the court since 1971, including himself, was more conservative than his or her predecessor. He was 99 years old. It is questionable whether Obama, in the current political climate, could replace Stevens with a nominee who shares such strong opinions, even if that were the presidents inclination. In a dissent in a case about a high-speed police chase, he said things used to be different on the nations roads. Like Justice Souter, Stevens' ideology shifted from conservative to more liberal over his long . Stevens has no security agents in Fort Lauderdale he says they would only attract attention and is so low-key that most of his neighbors dont seem to realize they have a Supreme Court justice in their midst. 3, 1925-1930|Virginia Woolf, Poison Pen: The True Confessions Of Two Tabloid Reporters|David Lafontaine, The Revolutionary 7-Unit Low Fat Diet|Audrey Eyton The conventional view is that his leftward drift was a bitter disappointment to his sponsors. In his view, sound decision making was about applying reasoned judgment to the particular facts of a case. It was a step toward greater humanity in the law from a justice who joined the court as a supporter of capital punishment but who came to believe that it had failed in practice and should be outlawed. The discovery in that case should have taken a day or two, he told me. John Paul Stevens (April 20, 1920 - July 16, 2019) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1975 to 2010. He also has used that power with patience and skill to forge and maintain alliances in major liberal victories, often locking in Justice Anthony Kennedys swing vote by assigning the opinion to him. In a crucial Bush-era decision on detention of suspected al-Qaeda members, Rasul v. Bush, Stevens was able to rely on a dissent he had helped draft for Rutledge in the obscure case of Ahrens v. Clark to help preserve the right of habeas corpus for detainees held at Guantnamo Bay, Cuba. Judicial liberalism, in other words, has largely become a conservative project: an effort to preserve the legal status quo in the face of efforts by a younger generation of conservatives to uproot the precedents of the past 40 years. Returning from the war in 1945, Stevens thought of becoming a high-school English teacher, like his mother, but instead was persuaded by his brother to enroll at Northwestern University Law School on the G.I. I shook the sand out of the brief! During his early years on the court, Stevens was known as the FedEx justice because he would hand-write his drafts on a yellow pad, dictate them for his secretary, FedEx them to Washington so she could type them up and then FedEx back and forth with his law clerks for editing. Stevens noted how important such materials were to inmates and dissected the prisons claims that prison safety demanded such censorship, opining that the prisons decision to ban certain publications was based on personal prejudices or categorical assumptions rather than individual assessments of risk. Id. He was already a well-respected lawyer and judge, as well Washington, But his illustrious career should be viewed in its full context as part of a judicial culture that is in vital need of reform. (President Barack Obama 91 appointed former Harvard Law School Dean and Solicitor General Elena Kagan 86 to the Supreme Court seat vacated by Stevens.). Alison J. Nathan, United States District Court Southern District of New York. At the beginning, he got a reputation as being a nit-picker, says his longtime friend Abner Mikva, former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit. When the chief justice is not in the majority, the senior justice in the majority is given the power to assign the majority opinion. The Religious Neutrality of Justice John Paul Stevens What one judge believes justice requires can differ radically from the beliefs of other judges. In 2008, Justice Stevens renounced the death penalty as a pointless and needless extinction of life while he also voted to impose it in the case then before the justices, out of respect for the courts previous decisions. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com. Six Amendments: How And Why We Should Change The Constitution| John Paul Stevens, Quantum Chemistry|Donald A McQuarrie, Homemade To Go: The Complete Guide To Co-Op Cooking|Mary E. Wells, Diary Of Virginia Woolf, Vol. from the University of Chicago, and a J.D. He supported the reinstatement of capital punishment, and he opposed race as a criterion for. Georgia (1976), Justice Stevens concurring "The time for a dispassionate impartial comparison of the enormous costs that death penalty litigation imposes on society with the benefits that it produces has surely arrived." Stanford v. Kentucky (1989), Justice Stevens dissenting It was amazing to see that, Stevens said, grinning like a proud schoolboy. But there is also support for his view that it was the court that moved to the right. ideology. He sometimes reads briefs on the beach. ), Stevens was also influenced by Rutledges dissenting opinion in the Yamashita case in 1946, in which the court upheld the power of a military commission to try and to execute a Japanese general in the Philippines in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Early in his tenure on the Supreme Court, Stevens had a relatively moderate voting record. District of Columbia v. Heller | Constitution Center John Paul Stevens' judicial decisions reflect a conservative If Stevens is shrewd in the majority, he is fierce in dissent. When he joined the court in 1975, Justice Stevens formed a middle-ground alliance with two moderates on the court, Justices Potter Stewart and Lewis Powell, according to Evan Mandery, author of A Wild Justice. The three justices decided to let states keep capital punishment as long as it wasnt mandatory; a state would have to give a jury the power to spare a defendants life. Sign up for our newsletter and event information. . Justice Stevens has maintained an active life outside the court, and has done much of his work from a home in Florida, for years piloting his own plane there and back. When the chief justice is in the majority and Stevens is in the minority, Stevens decides who will write the principal dissent; when the roles are reversed, Stevens assigns the majority opinion. Except maybe Justice Ginsburg. At the same time, merely conserving the achievements of the past is less than what many liberals today ultimately hope for. In schools and universities, by contrast, the whole student body profits from having diversity in the classes. You write what you think is correct and important, he told me matter-of-factly. Personal letters, snapshots of family members, a souvenir, a deck of cards, a hobby kit, perhaps a diary or a training manual for an apprentice in a new trade, or even a Bible a variety of inexpensive items may enable a prisoner to maintain contact with some part of his past and an eye to the possibility of a better future, he wrote. (I should also emphasize that he wrote far more high-quality opinions than those of the sort I single out here for criticism.) where he met future president John F. Kennedy and befriended future justice John Paul Stevens. It should be based on neutrally applied methods of interpretation that seek to ascertain the democratic intent behind a constitutional provision and to fairly apply that intent in light of modern societal conditions. Why is it useful to classify stars according to their colors surface temperatures and spectral characteristics? After a six-week investigation, culminating in Stevenss dramatic courtroom examination of the accused justices, the commission concluded that both men had, in fact, violated canons of judicial ethics, and both resigned. I was delighted, as Im sure you understand.. Harvard Law School provides unparalleled opportunities to study law with extraordinary colleagues in a rigorous, vibrant, and collaborative environment. Stevens's Retirement Ends an Era, for Court and Nation - The New York Times When he is in the majority, Stevens is careful not to lose votes that start off on his side, often assigning the opinion to Kennedy when Kennedy seems to be on the fence. He was also a kind, generous, and open human being who modeled intellectual integrity., In a tribute posted on CNN, Richard Lazarus 79, Howard and Katherine Aibel Professor of Law, said the nation lost a great American and a great justice. Describing Stevens as a Jedi Master, Lazarus said: [Justice Stevens] was an effective and influential justice, beloved by his colleagues on the court, and of course his loyal law clerks.In his early years, he had a deserved reputation as a maverick, often writing opinions on his own. He tries to maintain this vigorous exercise schedule when he is in Washington, playing tennis two or three times a week, often with one of his three daughters. President Obama with Justices John Paul Stevens, center, and Anthony Kennedy, right, before the formal investiture of the newest Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, on Sept. 8, 2009. He is interested in problems of law and religion, both globally and in the U.S. constitutional context. I dont think that my votes represent a change in my own thinking, he said. Stevens said some good friends in a nearby building didnt know who he was for quite a while. he opposed race as a criterion for university admission. For years, Justice Stevens has been the only justice to go it alone; Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. left the cert. In an interview with the authors of a biography called John Paul Stevens: An Independent Life, to be published next month, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that a secret to Justice Stevenss outsize influence is the speed with which he provides useful comments on other justices draft opinions. Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, is a frequent contributor to the magazine. Dick Anthony Heller was a D.C. special police officer who was authorized to carry a handgun while on duty. The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. I was very fond of Bill Brennan loved the guy and had great admiration for him, Stevens said. Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who described his deciding vote to uphold the constitutionality of capital punishment in 1976 as the one court vote he most regretted, has died. I mentioned that many people had ridiculed his prediction that the Clinton v. Jones case appears to us highly unlikely to occupy any substantial amount of the presidents time. Lazarus, who co-directs Harvard Law Schools Environmental Law Program, said that Justice Stevens earned his reputation as the environmental law steward on the nations highest Court as he time and again safeguarded the laws from attempts to weaken them. And no liberal on the reconstituted court will have the powers of seniority that Stevens, 89, put to use. As early as 1948, when he was a law clerk, he wrote a memo to Rutledge suggesting that segregation was unconstitutional, as Diane Amann, a visiting professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley, has noted. Its not everybody my age who is able to continue to do work that he likes to do, he said. That focus on facts, she said, is among the dimensions for which Justice John Paul Stevens has set the standard defining what a great judge is., After retiring, Stevens wrote two books, Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution,and Five Chiefs: a Supreme Court Memoir.. All of a sudden, we have gone from the rule of law to the rule of individuals. The issue in that case was whether he could have the trial postponed until he left office. But Justice Stevens, who died Tuesday at age 99 from complications of a stroke, believed in making what he called careful, reasoned judgments based on evidence from the world around him. He joined forces with moderate and liberal good-government Democrats, who were opposed to the corruption of the Daley machine. He considers himself a judicial conservative, he said, and only appears liberal today because he has been surrounded by increasingly conservative colleagues. at 430 (Stevens, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Justice John Paul Stevens - Harvard Law Review Id be reading briefs by the pool, and one of them would say, Thats awful stuffy! He swims every day in the ocean, plays tennis at least three times a week and plays golf two or three times a week.