Justice Stevens

SCOTUSBlog has been running a series of articles on retiring Justice Stevens. Here are my favorites:

Justice Stevens as Legal Innovator, "As he prepares to retire from the Supreme Court, Justice Stevens is justly being hailed for his intellect, independence, leadership, and grace. I would add another encomium: innovative legal problem solver. I don’t mean someone who looks to the law to solve social problems. I mean a judge who looks to the law to solve its own problems – someone who believes deeply in the law’s integrity but instead of assuming the law is perfect, assumes it has a capacity for self-correction. The meaning of the Eighth Amendment as applied to the death penalty is an example of a legal problem Justice Stevens has led the Court in trying to solve."

The Least Popular Dissent. "Justice Stevens’ dissent in Texas v. Johnson is one of his most well-known opinions. It is usually hailed as the emotional decision of a loyal former soldier whose military experience changed him forever. Without any empirical data to back me up, I also believe it is likely true what Justice Stevens seemed to suspect in chambers that day—that his famous dissent enjoys surprisingly little support among his law clerks."

Justice Stevens’ path from centrist to liberal. "From one standpoint, the more conservative rulings should not be surprising. Stevens was appointed as a moderate, nominated by a Republican president and championed by a Republican attorney general, and for many years he worked at business-oriented law firms.   Of course, Republicans were different in those days (e.g., more Republican than Democratic senators voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964).   Nevertheless, the question remains, what explains the path of John Paul Stevens’ jurisprudence from essentially centrist to leader of the liberal faction of the Supreme Court?  The inquiry invites inspection of his personal history."

And if you're going to read just one, read The Greatest Justice "Justice John Paul Stevens is the greatest Justice in Supreme Court history. I say this, not as hyperbole, but as a reflection of the record he has compiled in his thirty-four and one-half years on the Court.  It is a description warranted by his vast influence over wide swathes of the law, especially those that go to the heart of our constitutional democracy.  His contributions to our jurisprudence are profound, and will endure.  And I say ‘greatest,’ not just ‘great,’ because even our most storied Justices have not compiled a record that rivals or surpasses Justice Stevens’ record."