Patrick Leahy Quotes

To hear both critics and defenders talk about the fitness of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court, you'd think the most successful Supreme Court justices had been warm, collegial consensus-builders. But history tells a different story.

The Supreme Court does not get very reckless very often.

I don’t see why a Supreme Court justice has to have previous experience as a judge.

Judges are terrible politicians.

The base that Marshall built in law, and in tradition, transcends his life and animates the rest of American history. Part of the genius of John Marshall, is that in a very real sense, he invented the Supreme Court.

The perception of the Supreme Court as a political court in most constitutional cases and many nonconstitutional ones derives from the fact that the justices form confident views without any empirical basis for them.

Sometimes Supreme Court justices surprise you with their decisions - you think they're going to vote one way, but they vote a different way, and I keep an open mind about that. But I think a moral compass is really important for a Supreme Court justice, as it is for any political appointee.

I believe Judge Kavanaugh will be a justice whose adherence to the Constitution and the rule of law will be a credit to the Court and all Americans.

Each justice enters the Supreme Court possessing a record of opinion by which he or she is measured, and that without threat of election or outside influence, they will apply the Constitution as they always have; thus, it's ridiculous to assert the opposite.

Justice is not to be taken by storm. She is to be wooed by slow advances. Substitute statute for decision, and you shift the center of authority, but add no quota of inspired wisdom.

Justice [Sandra Day] O'Connor has been the critical decisive vote on many issues that go to the heart of who we are as a nation.

Activist Supreme Courts are not new. The Dred Scott decision in 1856, imposing slavery in free territories; the Plessy decision in 1896, imposing segregation on a private railroad company; the Korematsu decision in 1944, upholding Franklin Roosevelt’s internment of American citizens, mostly Japanese Americans; and the Roe decision in 1973, imposing abortion on the entire nation; are examples of the consequences of activist Courts and justices.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor brought critical qualities to the high court that not everybody thinks are qualities - I happen to think they are - her pragmatism and her state craft.

I wonder if there's just a sense that we have nothing to learn from any Supreme Court justice, including the great Chief Justice John Marshall.

It's always interesting to see what judges do when their legal philosophy conflicts with their political views.

The United States Supreme Court, once a reliable if ultimate recourse for progressive and even revolutionary grievances, has become a retrograde wellspring for enormous economic and social distress.

I don't think we should have justices appointed that decide what they want to hear.

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.

The president typically never does comment on anything involving the Supreme Court cases, Supreme Court ruling, or Supreme Court finding, typically.

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

Many voters think about the makeup of the Supreme Court when they are choosing a president. The justices deal not only with constitutional issues but also with social issues that were unknown to the founding fathers who wrote the Constitution more than 200 years ago.

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.

The traditional practice is that the justices don't ask the attorney general any questions, so as not to embarrass him. But Bobby Kennedy had let them know that he didn't mind if they asked him questions and they did.

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.

Judges have to have the humility to recognize that they operate within a system of precedent, shaped by other judges equally striving to live up to the judicial oath.