American Supreme court justice , b.1936 Popularity:
“What will happen is, for every one person who sees it on C-SPAN gavel to gavel -- so that they can really understand what the court is about, what the whole process is -- 10,000 will see 15-second takeouts on the network news, which I guarantee you will be uncharacteristic of what the court does, ... So I have come to the conclusion that it will misinform the public, rather than inform the public, to have our proceedings televised.”
“Does it stop being a quota because it is somewhere between eight and 12 percent, but it is a quota if it is 10 percent? ... Once you use that term 'critical mass,' you're in quota land.”
“If one is to say as the court does today that ALL executions of the mentally retarded are so morally repugnant as to violate our national standards of decency, surely the consensus it points to must be one that has set its righteous face against ALL such executions,”
“The first instinct of power is the retention of power, and under a Constitution that requires periodic elections, that is best achieved by the suppression of election-time speech,”
“the Constitution's refusal to 'deny or disparage' other rights is far removed from affirming any one of them, and even farther removed from authorizing judges to identify what they might be, and to enforce the judges' list against laws duly enacted by the people.”
