The End of an Era, for Court and Nation
By ADAM LIPTAK
NYT
WASHINGTON — Justice John Paul Stevens, who announced his resignation from the Supreme Court on Friday after 34 years, may be the last justice from a time when ability and independence, rather than perceived ideology, were viewed as the crucial qualifications for a seat on the court. He was nominated in 1975 by President Gerald R. Ford, who said all he wanted was “the finest legal mind I could find.”
Justice Stevens was confirmed 19 days after his nomination. Though Roe v. Wade had been decided two years earlier, he was asked no questions about the decision, which identified a constitutional right to abortion. His confirmation hearings were the last not to be broadcast live on television.
Justice Stevens, a Republican, gradually became the leader of the court’s liberal wing, and his majority opinions limited the use of the death penalty and expanded the rights of prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Over time, he became increasingly skeptical of claims of government power, and he often voted in favor of criminal defendants, prisoners and people claiming to have been subjected to unlawful discrimination.
The conventional view is that his leftward drift was a bitter disappointment to his sponsors. Mr. Ford had certainly cared about judicial ideology: As a congressman in 1970, he led the failed attempt to impeach Justice William O. Douglas for being too liberal, saying he had endorsed “hippie-yippie-style revolution.”
(More here.)
NYT
WASHINGTON — Justice John Paul Stevens, who announced his resignation from the Supreme Court on Friday after 34 years, may be the last justice from a time when ability and independence, rather than perceived ideology, were viewed as the crucial qualifications for a seat on the court. He was nominated in 1975 by President Gerald R. Ford, who said all he wanted was “the finest legal mind I could find.”
Justice Stevens was confirmed 19 days after his nomination. Though Roe v. Wade had been decided two years earlier, he was asked no questions about the decision, which identified a constitutional right to abortion. His confirmation hearings were the last not to be broadcast live on television.
Justice Stevens, a Republican, gradually became the leader of the court’s liberal wing, and his majority opinions limited the use of the death penalty and expanded the rights of prisoners held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Over time, he became increasingly skeptical of claims of government power, and he often voted in favor of criminal defendants, prisoners and people claiming to have been subjected to unlawful discrimination.
The conventional view is that his leftward drift was a bitter disappointment to his sponsors. Mr. Ford had certainly cared about judicial ideology: As a congressman in 1970, he led the failed attempt to impeach Justice William O. Douglas for being too liberal, saying he had endorsed “hippie-yippie-style revolution.”
(More here.)
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