Precedent Setting Quotes

John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.

The law is sawdust that had already been chewed by a thousand mouths.

One precedent creates another. They soon accumulate and constitute law. What yesterday was fact, today is doctrine.

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

It usually takes a hundred years to make a law, and then, after it has done its work, it usually takes a hundred years to get rid of it.

The president appoints the judges. Your lives and your children's lives can change by all of these appellate court judges who will be appointed who will reinterpret laws, and things can change.

Stare decisis is usually the wise policy, because in most matters it is more important that the applicable rule of law be settled than that it be settled right. ... But in cases involving the Federal Constitution, where correction through legislative action is practically impossible, this Court has often overruled its earlier decisions. ... This is strikingly true of cases under the due process clause.

I think you have to be concerned about any presidential executive order because it has the power of law until it's knocked down by an act of Congress or a court.

The true test of whether Mr. Obama has improved on the Bush era lies in how his administration justifies its decisions on the 241 remaining Guantanamo detainees, whose cases will now be evaluated internally and reviewed by the courts.

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.

When you file an amicus brief, and you represent a state, the court reads your brief. It is a powerful position to make the legal assault from.

Cagey trial lawyers have figured out there's a pretty good likelihood their case - no matter what its merit - will literally get its day in court because of favorable judges.

Open rules! Open standards! Open findings! Open precedents!

I believe having judges with real world, frontline experience as a prosecutor is a good thing.

I believe that President Clinton considered the legal merits of the arguments for the pardon as he understood them, and he rendered his judgment, wise or unwise, on the merits.

I don't know why his lawyers didn't tell him, 'You don't have to answer any questions about your private life, Mr. President. Let them sue you. Take the heat. You don't have to answer.'

The law is always in transition.

When the code of laws is once fixed, it should be observed in the literal sense, and nothing more is left to the judge than to determine whether an action is or is not conformable to the written law.

When you're allowing the Executive Branch to deprive somebody of a constitutional liberty without any process, that is something that affects all Americans because that's a precedent that can be used.

The FCC should obviously not propose bad rules that will be struck down; it should propose good rules that will be upheld.

The job of the Attorney General is very specific. My roll, as the legal adviser, is to defend the constitutionality of the laws as they're passed.

We all come to the [Supreme] Court with our bags fully packed. What we take out of them may not have been used before, but they were there.

Laws are like medicine, they cure an evil by a lesser or transient evil.

It has something to do with the facts and the law and who the judges are. So I think lawyers sometimes exaggerate their role in winning and losing. Lawyers do have a role, and a major role, but they're not the only players in this game.

I entirely differ with the Government as to the value of precedents. In this case, as in others, precedents are not mere dusty phrases, which do not substantially affect the question before us. A precedent embalms a principle.