Sam Ervin Quotes

I have written this treatise because there are judges who decide cases according to their own will rather than by the authority of the laws

[The] discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny . . .

Judicial abuse occurs when judges substitute their own political views for the law.

The right of the judge to inflict punishment gives him both power and opportunity to oppress the innocent; yet none but crazy men will from thence determine that it is best to have neither a legislature nor judges.

I think when judges are in the position of authority, they really get bent out of shape when someone tells them they acted inappropriately.

We must keep in mind the vast power entrusted to Federal judges. They never stand for election. Once appointed, they serve for life. The havoc that a Federal District Court Judge can wreak is substantial.

… a clear abuse of judicial power

The federal judiciary is an irresponsible body … working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction ...

We don't pay judges to think; we pay judges to rule on the law.

A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge... stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.

Our runaway judiciary is badly in need of restraint by Congress.

At least there's a political input, but when you put on the robe, at that point the politics is over.

Ideological warriors whether from the Left or the Right are bad news for the bench. They tend to make law, not interpret law. And that's not what any of us should want from our judges.

The bedrock of our democracy is the rule of law and that means we have to have an independent judiciary, judges who can make decisions independent of the political winds that are blowing.

Judges who take the law into their own hands, who make up constitutional 'rights' in order to strike down laws they oppose, undermine the people's right to have their values shape public policy and define the culture.

To the extent that the judicial profession becomes the daily routine of deciding cases on the most secure precedents and the narrowest grounds available, the judicial mind atrophies and its perspective shrinks.

If the country comes to believe that judges are politicians in robes no end of difficulty will come from that.

The judges’ individual sense of justice ... might result in a benevolent despotism if the judges were benevolent men. [But] It would put an end to the reign of law

The fact that the judiciary makes foolish rulings doesn’t mean the government should intervene.

People’s lives and fortunes have been relinquished to renegade judges, a robed contemptuous elite.

We live in a democracy which can be destroyed if judges function as Platonic guardians.

The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

Judicial activism is a term for a legal opinion that the speaker does not like. It is a curse word without content.

The inflexible and uniform adherence to the rights of the constitution and of individuals, which we perceive to be indispensable in the courts of justice, can certainly not be expected from judges who hold their offices by a temporary commission.

This Court seems incapable of admitting that some matters - any matters - are none of its business.