Stephen Breyer
Stephen Breyer
Stephen Gerald Breyeris an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, and known for his pragmatic approach to constitutional law, Breyer is generally associated with the more liberal side of the Court...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSupreme Court Justice
Date of Birth15 August 1938
CitySan Francisco, CA
CountryUnited States of America
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Well it's fairly important that everyone have a lawyer and so we have a system that you can't convict a person without a lawyer, even if he's guilty.
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Well, just that there would be somebody in the office and the voters - it was more or less an understanding in the entire community, as long as that person was doing a good job on the merits, nobody was going to run against him.
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We developed a system of protecting human liberty such that judges and independent judges are a necessary part of that protection.
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Ultimately, the question of campaign contributions will be decided by the public.
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Would I want to be judged by whether or not I was popular? Wouldn't I want to be judged on what was true as opposed to what might be popular?
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Once you're in a system where there are contributions being made, it's certainly not the case that everybody expects something back.
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I think it shows that if you have one group of people doing it, you'll get another group of people doing it.
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At the same time, we do live in a democracy. And for that reason I think it is appropriate to have some element of public control.
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I mean those people who are interested in good government will certainly contribute in order to make certain there's some counter-balance to those whose interests in good government is less.
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And in that confirmation process, I sat for 17 hours in front of a senate judiciary committee.
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And if a judge is going to be criticized for letting off a person and it turns out that person was innocent, that would be a pretty bad criticism.
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Breyer said, ''that certainly looks to text, certainly looks to history, certainly looks to tradition and precedent -- but that also emphasizes heavily the purpose of this particular provision and the consequences as viewed in terms of the purposes, is more likely to get at what this law is about, what area of human life it is seeking to affect and how. That's what I think the essence of law is.
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Virginia is now pursuing an execution schedule that leaves less time for argument and for court consideration than the court's rules provide for ordinary cases.
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But the wonderful thing about human memory is, it forgets, ... And so you always have another chance. People don't remember after a time. The computer remembers forever. There it is: picture recorded.