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Quotes by Judge
"Proceeding further, to inquire whether the facts related by the Four Evangelists are proved by competent and satisfactory evidence, we are led, first, to consider on which side lies the burden of establishing the credibility of the witnesses."
43
"We might not object to the statement that Lear deserved to suffer for his folly, selfishness and tyranny; but to assert that he deserved to suffer what he did suffer is to do violence not merely to language but to any healthy moral sense."
43
"When I hear of an 'equity' in a case like this, I am reminded of a blind man in a dark room - looking for a black hat - which isn't there."
43
"While democracy must have its organization and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty."
43
"Method is much, technique is much, but inspiration is even more."
43
"I think the important thing about my appointment is not that I will decide cases as a woman, but that I am a woman who will get to decide cases."
43
"The enforcement of the law cannot depend on the justice of a cause or one man's conscience."
43
"But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here."
42
"Most high courts in other nations do not have discretion, such as we enjoy, in selecting the cases that the high court reviews. Our court is virtually alone in the amount of discretion it has."
42
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."
42
"To listen well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well."
42
"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."
42
"Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from the failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so."
42
"A person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not give rise to probable cause to search that person."
42
"The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution."
42
"Today's Constitution is a realistic document of freedom only because of several corrective amendments. Those amendments speak to a sense of decency and fairness that I and other Blacks cherish."
42
"Dissents are appeals to the brooding spirit of the law, to the intelligence of another day."
42
"I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all of our basic rights."
42
"There would be nights when I would wake up and couldn't get back to sleep. So I would go downstairs and write. The staff had a pool going on how many pages of typing I would bring in here in the morning."
42
"The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving."
42
"Independence doesn't mean you decide the way you want."
41
"Defendants are being evaluated based on numerical grid without any aggravating circumstances being considered. The effect has been to transfer the disparity from the judge to the prosecutor allowing for a great deal of leeway on indictments."
41
"I feel that the greatest reward for doing is the opportunity to do more."
41
"The attorney general would call at 5 o'clock in the evening and say: 'Tomorrow morning we are going to try to integrate the University of Mississippi. Get us a memo on what we're likely to do, and what we can do if the governor sends the National Guard there.'"
41
"Ben Franklin may have discovered electricity- but it is the man who invented the meter who made the money."
41
"The Constitution is not a panacea for every blot upon the public welfare. Nor should this Court, ordained as a judicial body, be thought of as a general haven for reform movements."
41
"It is a measure of the framers' fear that a passing majority might find it expedient to compromise 4th Amendment values that these values were embodied in the Constitution itself."
40
"The fact is, we are a nine-member court that sits on cases."
40
"I would not like to be the only woman on the court."
40
"Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done."
40
"The judicial system is the most expensive machine ever invented for finding out what happened and what to do about it."
40
"The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved."
40
"But separation of church and state was never meant to separate God and government."
40
"If the provisions of the constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned."
40
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