Alex Kozinski Quotes

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

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.

Judges ... rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to pressures of the times.

No matter how badly senators want to know things, judicial nominees are limited in what they may discuss. That limitation is real, and it comes from the very nature of what judges do.

I think that the legitimacy of the court would be undermined in any case if the court made a decision based on its perception of public opinion.

Unfortunately, what many people forget is that judges are just lawyers in robes.

The judiciary must not take on the coloration of whatever may be popular at the moment. We are guardian of rights, and we have to tell people things they often do not like to hear.

I do not think that we should select judges based on a particular philosophy as opposed to temperament, commitment to judicial neutrality and commitment to other more constant values as to which there is general consensus.

If a judge does his job right, you [the observer] will never know how he personally feels about the policies he may have to rule on.

The state in commissioning its judges has commanded them to judge, but neither in constitution nor in statute has it formulated a code to define the manner of their judging.

The judge may not … express his … personal beliefs ... as to what is right or just

Judges are terrible politicians.

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

… judges need to be intimidated. They need to uphold the Constitution. If they don't behave we're going to go after them in a big way.

There is a profound difference between an activist judge and an engaged judge.

There can be no activist judges from any political party.

The worst thing you want is a willy-nilly judge who is swayed by the political whims of the era or the time. What you want is a judge who is thinking about what he or she is doing and is thinking about it in a principled way.

Judges need to restrict themselves to the proper resolution of the case before them. They need to avoid the temptation to set broad policy.

Judges wear legal professionalism and precedent as a mantel that secures legitimacy for their decisions. It's how they distinguish themselves from politicians or administrative agencies, while wielding power that is sometimes much greater than those democratically accountable actors.

I'm a judge. It seemed to me that it was critical to try to take action to stem the criticism and help people understand that in the constitutional framework, it's terribly important not to have a system of retaliation against decisions people don't like.

I don't know how a judge can concentrate on being fair and impartial when he or she is faced with possible jail time for making a decision that others deem incorrect.

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.

None of the constitutional, legal or other principles bars me from returning to the judiciary, since the judiciary remains independent if the actors remain independent and fair.

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.