[These may indicate an inability to] think lucidly and deeply about legal questions and express her thoughts in clear, pointed, understandable prose, ... A justice without those capabilities -- however generally intelligent, decent and hardworking -- risks being a calamity for the court, the law, and the country. |
He's obviously a conservative man but in disposition, not in some kind of ideological way. |
I think in many respects, his hold on his court in the last few years has begun to slip away. |
If only people who are ideologically committed to a particular outcome argued to the courts, the law would be worse off. |
It is really a euphemism for asking the man, 'how are you going to decide particular cases that I care about? It is a kind of smoke screen for asking that question. |
It's a big tree, but it has ramified and exfoliated, ... would be an enormous disruption. |
My impression of him, and the impressions of everyone in the office, was he is a very fine lawyer, a very hard worker, a beautiful writer and absolutely, meticulously objective. |
Rehnquist thought [the court] had gone way too far, and in many dissents was working to cut it back. He succeeded, and he began to succeed even before he became chief justice. He gradually cut back federal-court supervision of state prosecutions. [The death penalty ban] was reversed. And the limits upon prosecutors and police were rationalized and relaxed. |
The main thing that drew me to him was that he was a beautiful writer, not just the clarity but the aptness of expression. |
The profession is designed to help the court by making sure that the best possible arguments - not misleading arguments, not arguments that stretch a point, not arguments that hide precedents - but that the best possible arguments are presented, ... That's the business we're in. It's very much like if you were a doctor. Do you only cure people who, when they're cured, will lead their lives as you were going to lead them? |