You are the end of an era. Not just superficially, not just because you were the last World War II veteran who will ever sit where you sat. Far beyond that, you represent the greatest tradition in the United States Supreme Court -- a justice profoundly deepened and broadened by his elevation to and experience on the Bench. You shared this greatness with your predecessor, Earl Warren, who like you came to the Bench a Republican, and who like you, began to see "justice" in a far more multidimensional and nonpartisan way. You started out favoring the death penalty, and no doubt after reviewing too many disturbing writs for certiori, only a fraction of which the Court was able to hear, reversed your position, having acquired the humbling and shocking knowledge that the administration of the death penalty in the United States is sloppy and kills innocent people. But it is not only we the people who will miss you -- our Constitution, and especially the Fourteenth Amendment, will miss you. Just how much was highlighted in your magnificent valedictory opinion, your stinging dissent from the majority in Citizens United v. FEC.
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