Legal Decision-Making Quotes

We haven't seen a situation where you have the FBI director talk about an investigation side by side with the attorney general who confirms, yes, I accept the recommendation of the FBI director.

English Law: where there are two alternatives: one intelligent, one stupid; one attractive, one vulgar; one noble, one ape-like; one serious and sincere, one undignified and false; one far-sighted, one short; EVERYBODY will INVARIABLY choose the latter.

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.

All these problems [deciding cases] are easier for people who believe in God. Those of us who don't or can't have to do the best we can. That's what the law is, the best we can do. Human justice is imperfect, but it's the only justice we have.

For better or worse, when I was director of public prosecutions I had to deal with every challenge that came up, and come up with an answer. Being in opposition, you're not taking the decisions; you're saying what you would do if you were in power, and that's deeply frustrating.

Originalism is sort of subspecies of textualism. Textualism means you are governed by the text. That's the only thing that is relevant to your decision, not whether the outcome is desirable, not whether legislative history says this or that. But the text of the statute.

At the end of the table, the secretary was reading the decision in some case, but in such a mournful and monotonous voice, that the condemned man himself would have fallen asleep while listening to it. The judge, no doubt, would have been the first of all to do so, had he not entered into an engrossing conversation while it was going on.

Lawyers may reason powerfully, but power settles most issues.

To be a judge you don't have to know about books, you have to be skilled at picking shrapnel out of your head.

The decision that has to be made was whether it was material, whether he knew he was lying under oath, whether he did it willfully. I think that's required of any prosecutor who is charged with an investigation of this.

It is hard to see Judge Roberts as a judicial activist who would place ideological purity or a particular agenda above or ahead the need for thoughtful legal reasoning.

Everybody hates lawyers, but they don't realize judges are just lawyers with a promotion. Think about it.

I think that sometimes the most intelligent things that prosecutors do is when they exercise their discretion not to go forward with a case.

This procedure [selecting the simplest law], however, has no logical justification but only a psychological one.

When we do merger rulings, we have strict deadlines: 25 days. It is extremely intensive, and you must decide how you can do it before your spouse says, 'You know I still love you, but please spend some more time at home.'

Chief Justice [John] Roberts compared judges to umpires, who apply rules they did not write and cannot change to the competition before them.

Mr. Buckley, let me explain it this way. And I'll do so very carefully & slowly so that even you will understand it. If I was the sheriff, I would not have arrested him. If I was on the grand jury, I would not have indicted him. If I was the judge, I would not try him. If I was the D.A., I would not prosecute him. If I was on the trial jury, I would vote to give him a key to the city, a plaque to hang on his wall, & I would send him home to his family. And, Mr. Buckley, if my daughter is ever raped, I hope I have the guts to do what he did.

Reaching a conclusion has to start with what the parties are arguing, but examining in all situations carefully the facts as they prove them or not prove them, the record as they create it, and then making a decision that is limited to what the law says on the facts before the judge.

The whole idea of equal justice under law is completely incompatible with the idea of judges deciding cases according to "empathy".

The work of deciding cases goes on every day in hundreds of courts throughout the land. Any judge, one might suppose, would find it easy to describe the process which he had followed a thousand times and more. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The court has to decide which of our approved desires has the better claim, right here, right now, and a court has to do more than read fairly when it makes this kind of choice.

The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury.

My approach to deciding cases is I look at the law, I look at the facts, and I do my best to apply the law to the facts and make a decision based on the law and the facts.

I don't stand by the understanding of that statement that I will ignore other facts or other experiences because I haven't had them. I do believe that life experiences are important to the process of judging - They help you to understand and listen - but that the law requires a result. And it would command you to the facts that are relevant to the disposition of the case.

Our civilization has decided that determining the guilt or innocence of men is a thing too important to be trusted to trained men. When it wants a library catalogued, or the solar system discovered, or any trifle of that kind, it uses up its specialists. But when it wishes anything done which is really serious, it collects twelve of the ordinary men standing round. The same thing was done, if I remember right, by the Founder of Christianity.