Judicial Dissent Quotes

In this Court dissents have gradually become majority opinions.

A dissent in a court of last resort is an appeal to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of a future day when a later decision may possibly correct the error …

The experience I don't want to see repeated occurred in 'Bush v. Gore.' The Court divided five to four. There were four separate dissents, and that confused the press. In fact, some of the reporters announced that the decision was seven-two. There was no time to get together.

I announced my dissent in the Citizens United orally, and I stumbled in my announcement. I had a little difficulty expressing myself. And that was out of character.

No doubt, there are those who believe that judges - and particularly dissenting judges - write to hear themselves say, as it were, 'I, I, I.' And no doubt, there are also those who believe that judges are, like Joan Didion, primarily engaged in the writing of fiction. I cannot agree with either of those propositions.

I have, on several occasions, disagreed with decisions of Justice Souter.

The fact that there is a five-to-four decision usually means that there is at hand a five-to-four problem. Judges are not perverse; they look for unanimity, not disagreement.

Dissents speak to a future age. It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.' But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that's the dissenter's hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.

It's simply not bias for a judge to explain her reasoning in a dissent.

The majority opinions [of the Supreme Court] determined the cases but these dissenting opinions will determine the minds of the future.

My dissenting opinions, like my briefs, are intended to persuade. And sometimes one must be forceful about saying how wrong the Court's decision is.

If you want criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the Court. That will give you criticisms.

It's not simply to say, 'My colleagues are wrong, and I would do it this way,' but the greatest dissents do become court opinions.

This is a very, very conservative judge who in his dissenting opinions is overwhelmingly likely to be more conservative than the majority.

In a number of cases dissenting opinions have in time become the law.

The first opinion the Court ever filed had a dissenting opinion. Dissent is a tradition of this Court... When someone is writing for the Court, he hopes to get eight others to agree with him, so many of the majority opinions are rather stultified.