Judicial Quotes - Page 4

• Much of the Constitution is remarkably simple and straightforward - certainly as compared to the convoluted reasoning of judges and law professors discussing what is called 'Constitutional law,' much of which has no basis in that document....The real question [for judicial nominees] is whether that nominee will follow the law or succumb to the lure of 'a living constitution,' 'evolving standards' and other lofty words meaning judicial power to reshape the law to suit their own personal preferences.

  Thomas Sowell

  Real, Simple, Law

  24 Copy quote

• If Americans loved judicial activism, liberals wouldn't be lying about what it is. Judicial activism means making up constitutional rights in order to strike down laws the justices don't like based on their personal preferences. It's not judicial activism to strike down laws because they violate the Constitution.

  Ann Coulter

  Lying, Mean, Rights

  5 Copy quote

• States kill when they apply the death penalty, when they send their people to war, or when they carry out extra-judicial or summary executions. They can also kill by omission, when they fail to guarantee to their people access to the bare essentials for life.

  Pope Francis

  War, Omission, People

  6 Copy quote

• It's really not a stretch. The checks and balances are the same. The drums are the executive branch. The jazz orchestra is the legislative branch. Logic and reason are like jazz solos. The bass player is the judicial branch. One our greatest ever is Milt Hinton, and his nickname is "The Judge."

  Wynton Marsalis

  Player, Judging, Balance

  Interview with Vickie Karp, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 18, 2009.

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• People can be committed to a mental institution only after judicial hearing, but people are committed to schools beyond the reach of Habeas Corpus.

  Martin Mayer

  School, People, Hearing

  Martin Mayer (1963). “Where, When, and why: Social Studies in American Schools”, New York : Harper & Row

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Trees have judicial standing, and probably grass too.

  William O. Douglas

  Tree, Grass, Standing

  4 Copy quote

• I hope that the American public understands that we have three levels of government. We have the (unintelligible) the executive, but there's legislative and the judicial, and the legislative obviously need to be just doing their job.

  Stockard Channing

  Jobs, Government, Three

  Source: www.pbs.org

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• This trial cannot be separated from the process of the historical struggle in Palestine that continues today between the Zionist Movement and the Palestinian people, a struggle that centers on Palestinian land, history, civilization, culture and identityAs for your judicial apparatus, which is where this court comes from: it is one of the instruments of the occupation whose function is to give the cover of legal legitimacy to the crimes of the occupation, in addition to consecrating its systems and allowing the imposition of these systems on our people through force.

  Ahmad Sa'adat

  Struggle, Land, Civilization

  6 Copy quote

• The political terms 'will' and 'popular will' have a long track record in Western history going back to Rousseau. That record is profoundly anti-democratic, essentially inviting elites to interpret what the common people believe and want. In litigious modern America, that would be a judicial elite telling us how we meant to vote or should have voted.

  John Leo

  Believe, Should Have, America

  4 Copy quote

• Impressed with a conviction that the due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good Government, I have considered the first arrangement of the Judicial department as essential to the happiness of our Country, and to the stability of its political system.

  George Washington

  Country, Government, Justice

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1852). “Life of Washington”, p.453

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• You can understand why the original framers of judicial ethics thought it would be undignified and would call into question the legitimacy of the judicial decision-making process to have mudslinging by judges, but the way that we hobble people of enormous integrity from defending themselves is, I think, deeply problematic in states where you have an elected judiciary, or a judge is subject to recall.

  Deborah Rhode

  Integrity, Thinking, People

  "What Would Brandeis Do?". Interview with Dahlia Lithwick, www.slate.com. June 16, 2016.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Active liberty is particularly at risk when law restricts speech directly related to the shaping of public opinion, for example, speech that takes place in areas related to politics and policy-making by elected officials. That special risk justifies especially strong pro-speech judicial presumptions. It also justifies careful review whenever the speech in question seeks to shape public opinion, particularly if that opinion in turn will affect the political process and the kind of society in which we live.

  Stephen Breyer

  Strong, Policy Making, Law

  "Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution". Book by Stephen Breyer, 2008.

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• To play with baubles is our ambition, not to deal with grave questions in a spirit of serious energy. But while we are playing with baubles, with our Legislative Councils, our Simultaneous Examinations, our ingenious schemes for separating the judicial from the executive functions, - while we, I say, are finessing about trifles, the waters of the great deep are being stirred and that surging chaos of the primitive man over which our civilised societies are superimposed on a thin crust of convention, is being strangely and ominously agitated.

  Sri Aurobindo

  Ambition, Men, Primitive Man

  "New Lamps for Old". Nine articles by Sri Aurobindo in the "Indu Prakash" (a Bombay daily newspaper), December 4, 1893.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a difference between constitutional government and judicial dictatorship, and I think it's time we remembered that our Constitution was not put together in order to establish the sovereignty of the judges, it was framed in order to guarantee the sovereignty of the people.

  Alan Keyes

  Thinking, Differences, Government

  Alan Keyes' Speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Arlington, Virginia, www.keyesarchives.com. January 24, 2004.

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.

  Byron White

  Exercise, Views, Judicial Power

  Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 at 222, 1973.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• I'll refrain from making any more comments on any ongoing people involved in the judicial process.

  Bill Belichick

  People, Ongoing, Process

  Source: www.bostonglobe.com

  73 Copy quote

  Show source

• It may seem ironic that the judicial branch preserves its legitimacy through refraining from action on political questions. That concept was put forward best by Justice [Felix] Frankfurter, appointed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

  Sam Brownback

  Justice, Political, Ironic

  "U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court". www.washingtonpost.com. January 9, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Narrow scope of judicial power was the reason that people accepted the idea that the federal courts could have the power of judicial review; that is, the ability to decide whether a challenged law comports with the Constitution.

  Sam Brownback

  Law, Ideas, People

  U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court, www.washingtonpost.com. January 9, 2006.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Judge Samuel Alito, millions of Americans are concerned about your nomination. They're worried that you would be a judicial activist who would restrict our rights and freedoms.

  Dick Durbin

  Rights, Judging, Nominations

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Judge [Samuel] Alito, I'll tell you the same thing I told John Roberts. I expect you to adhere to the Code of Judicial Conduct.

  Jon Kyl

  Judging, Code

  Source: www.washingtonpost.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• No judicial nomination should answer any question that is designed to reveal how the nominee will rule on any issue that could come before the court.

  Jon Kyl

  Issues, Answers, Nominations

  Jon Kyl during U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing on Judge Samuel Alito's Nomination to the Supreme Court, www.washingtonpost.com. January 9, 2006.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction in seeing your guest hold up his wineglass to the light and look judicial.

  George Eliot

  Light, Looks, Thrill

  George Eliot (2015). “Middlemarch: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)”, p.90, Penguin

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it. It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is. This is the very essence of judicial duty.

  John Marshall

  Mean, Law, Essence

  Marbury v. Madison (1803)

  53 Copy quote

  Show source

• General welfare is a general condition - maybe sound currency is general welfare, maybe markets, maybe judicial system, maybe a national defense, but this is specific welfare. This justifies the whole welfare state - the military industrial complex, the welfare to foreigners, the welfare state that imprisons our people and impoverishes our people and gives us our recession.

  Ron Paul

  Military, People, Giving

  "Mike Huckabee Explains 2012 Decision; Rep. Ron Paul on His Presidential Bid; Sens. Durbin, Kyl Talk Immigration Reform, Debt Ceiling". "Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace", www.foxnews.com. May 15, 2011.

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• [Louis] Brandeis is often painted as an acolyte of judicial restraint, or the view that judges should uphold laws whether or not they like them.

  Jeffrey Rosen

  Views, Law, Judging

  Source: www.slate.com

  4 Copy quote

  Show source