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Monday, October 19, 2009
Courts - More on: The Legacy of Justice John Paul Stevens
Updating this ILB entry from Oct. 17th on C-SPAN's America & the Courts program devoted to Justice Stevens, today Joan Biskupic of USA TODAY has a long story headed "Supreme Court's Stevens keeps cards close to robe." It begins:
WASHINGTON — In the 1970s, soon after Justice John Paul Stevens joined the Supreme Court, he asked a clerk to figure out the average age justices retired."I had him make a study," Stevens recalled, "so that I could plan ahead and retire at that age." The average was a bit over 70.
Stevens is now six months shy of 90. He is about to become the fifth-longest-serving justice in history and, more important for the law in America, he has emerged as a skilled tactician crafting liberal majorities on key cases in an era of judicial conservatism.
As leader of the nine-member court's liberal wing, Stevens has forged delicate majorities in areas of the law such as the rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, allowing them to get hearings before federal judges. Stevens has had a knack for working with centrist conservatives such as former justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice Anthony Kennedy, often the swing vote on cases.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 19, 2009 08:15 AM
Posted to Courts in general