Robert G. Ingersoll Quotes

As, for the safety of society, we commit honest maniacs to Bedlam, so judges should be withdrawn from their bench, whose erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution. It may indeed injure them in fame or in fortune; but it saves the republic, which is the first and supreme law.

Knowing that religion does not furnish grosser bigots than law, I expect little from old judges.

The judges are a big problem. Law is equal for everyone, except for them.

What is it that makes us trust our judges? Their independence in office and manner of appointment.

If the courts are making the decisions, it matters who the judge is and, of course, people are concerned with what is the bottom line.

You can have many different selection systems, but the bottom line has to be a system that, once the judge takes office that judge will feel that he or she is to decide the case without reference to the popular thing or the popular will of the moment.

As a practising lawyer, I was mediocre, but I worked hard as a law officer of the state government and on the private side. After becoming a judge, I maintained a low profile in other activities and concentrated only on judicial work.

A judge's duty is to grant justice, but his practice is to delay it: even those judges who know their duty adhere to the general practice.

The fascination about being a judge is the same about the duty of being a judge, and that is to ask yourself, Why am I about to rule the way I am about to rule? You must always ask yourself that question.

Practicing in the trial work trenches of the law, I saw, too, that when we judges don our robes, it doesn't make us any smarter, but it does serve as a reminder of what's expected of us: Impartiality and independence, collegiality and courage.

What I've learned over the years... judges are conscientious... not like lawyers, who give opinions.

While I sat in family court, I probably heard 20 or 25,000 cases. And I am sure, during the course of those cases, there were cases that I probably would've decided differently had I had either more time or been able to explore more. But all you can do as a judge is really give a case your best effort.

My personal opinions on any subject are really not relevant, not important, and to the extent that I might inject them, I am acting improperly as either a District Court judge or as an appellate court judge.

Most of us tend to be swayed by what we read. Judges are not superhuman. They, too, are mortals. This is why they have to be exceptionally careful in rendering decisions, which cause unintended consequences.

How long will it be before the cry goes up: "Let's kill all the judges"?

Good judges are always open to the possibility of changing their minds based on the next brief that they read, or the next argument that's made by an attorney who's appearing before them, or a comment that is made by a colleague during the conference on the case when the judges privately discuss the case.

Judges... are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing any thing unbecoming their nature in office.

Am I right in saying that the locust of this problem is simply that judges in America are half political animals and half oracular demigods?

The judiciary has fallen to a very low state in this country. I think your part of the country has suffered especially. The federal judges of the South are a disgrace to any country, and I'll be damned if I put any man on the bench of whose character and ability there is the least doubt.

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.

And the problem is once you get into this campaign business and begin to have a lot of money, then the person on the bench begins to think - what's going to happen if I decide the case this way or that way?

I have ventured to write more intimately about my personal life than is customary for a member of the Supreme Court, and with that candor comes a measure of vulnerability.

My concern was whether I could do the job of a justice well enough to convince the nation that my appointment was the right move.

They might object to some of my opinions, but they don't object to my behavior as a judge.

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.