John Roberts Quotes

The Supreme Court, when it decides a new legal question, does not make illegal what was previously legal; it gives a final authoritative determination of whether an action was legal when it took place.

What five members of the Supreme Court say the law is may be something vastly different from what Congress intended the law to be.

It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.

I also believe that the Supreme Court should be the final arbiter of all federal questions.

The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law.

All new laws, though penned with the greatest technical skill, and passed on the fullest and most mature deliberation, are considered as more or less obscure and equivocal, until their meaning be liquidated and ascertained by a series of particular discussions and adjudications.

Judges should decide legal disputes. Judges should not make law.

I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law.

Judges should interpret the law, not make it.

The Supreme Court is our ultimate check and balance.

Constitutions are interpreted differently from statutes.

When Congress writes a good law, then there are fewer lawsuits trying to interpret it.

The imperial judiciary lives.

The Supreme Court overrules, distinguishes, and upholds prior precedents. Sometimes it ignores them. But it does not - cannot - 'defy' them.

Courts do not make the law.

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.

A Supreme Court justice must convince at least four colleagues to bind the federal government nationwide, whereas a district court judge issuing a nationwide injunction needn't convince anyone.

A judge must interpret statutes as written. And a judge must interpret the Constitution as written, informed by history and tradition and precedent.

An essential function of the Court is to revise incorrect or outdated prior rulings. Over the last century, the Court has overruled itself about twice a year—roughly the same rate at which the Court has overturned acts of Congress.

Supreme Court precedents strictly bind lower courts, but they do not bind the Supreme Court itself. Indeed, an essential function of the Court is to revise incorrect or outdated prior rulings. Over the last century, the Court has overruled itself about twice a year—roughly the same rate at which the Court has overturned acts of Congress.

The last stop to protect rights and liberties is the Supreme Court.

A Supreme Court decision does not establish a "supreme law of the land" that is binding on all persons and parts of government, henceforth and forevermore.

They're all focusing on how John Roberts is going to decide Roe v. Wade. That isn't even the right question. I don't even know of a case in the (court) system that addresses it.

Most high courts in other nations do not have discretion, such as we enjoy, in selecting the cases that the high court reviews. Our court is virtually alone in the amount of discretion it has.

Of the judicial department of the Government, the Supreme Court is the head and representative, and to it must come for final decision all the great legal questions which may arise under the Constitution, the laws, or the treaties of the United States.