Samuel Alito Quotes

The obligation of any judge is to decide the case before the court, and the nature of the issue presented will largely determine the appropriate scope of the principle on which its decision should rest.

If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong.

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.

A Judge may be a farmer; but he is not to geld his own pigs.

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

All judges have cases that touch our passions deeply, but we all struggle constantly with remaining impartial.

…if I should once permit such political considerations to interfere with the administration of justice in this office, where could I stop? If I should once begin to allow my official conduct to be swayed by considerations such as those, I feel it would end by eventually leading me wholly astray.

[Discussing the confirmation process:] A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process.

Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.

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.

I don't think that a Justice should have uppermost in her mind, 'A Democratic president appointed me, so I must leave to be sure that another Democratic president can appoint my successor.'

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.

People must be confident that a judge's decisions are determined by the law and only the law. He must be faithful to the Constitution and statutes passed by Congress. Fidelity to the Constitution and the law has been the cornerstone of my life and the hallmark of the kind of judge I have tried to be.

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.

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

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

Judges as a class are not a speaking out group.

Our system presumes that there are certain principles that are more important than the temper of the times. And you must have a judge who is detached, who is independent, who is fair, who is committed only to those principles, and not public pressures of other sort.

A judge is supposed to have empathy for no one but simply to follow the law.

A judge may never subvert the law or twist it in any way to match the judge's convictions.

There can be no activist judges from any political party.

The judge's authority depends upon the assumption that he speaks with the mouth of others. That is to say, the momentum of his utterances must be greater than any which his personal reputation and character can command, if it is to do the work assigned to it - if it is to stand against the passionate resentments arising out of the interests he must frustrate - for while a judge must discover some composition with the dominant trends of his times, he must preserve his authority by cloaking himself in the majesty of an overshadowing past.

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.

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.