I may be wrong, but I do not believe that I have seen much about John Paul Stevens life. He died on July 16.
His Legacy is perhaps one of the most important in the history of the Supreme Court. We may know him as the head of the “liberal wing” of the Court, but one aspect of that legacy is he was appointed after Watergate by Gerald Ford as a probably conservative Justice.
And he did begin as such. But, he transformed in the way you would hope a judge in the real world would.
He began with short, poorly thought decisions. But, after some time he found his rhythm and voice.
Now, we may disagree (I do) with his decision in Kelo. www.casebriefs.com/…
If you recall Kelo supported broad Eminent Domain Powers which allowed a private company to act as the justification for a taking (essentially).
However, Bowers www.law.cornell.edu/… is an example of his finding his voice and place in history. He authored the dissent against an anti-sodomy law in Georgia’s being upheld.
That Dissent later led to Lawrence v. Texas www.oyez.org/… which struck down anti-sodomy laws between consenting adults.
We can only hope that his dissent in Heller acts as a future basis for the Second Amendment. www.oyez.org/…
If you’ve ever read the Heller decision it is absurd “judicial activism” by the conservatives.
The dissent, went in depth into the historic meaning of the second Amendment, the history, and what to me was unmistakably the Founders intent (it was not some absolute freedom about guns, the Second Amendment was entirely about Militia’s) with more than ample evidence.
He wrote:
The Court would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons, and to authorize this Court to use the common-law process of case-by-case judicial lawmaking to define the contours of acceptable gun control policy. Absent compelling evidence that is nowhere to be found in the Court’s opinion, I could not possibly conclude that the Framers made such a choice.
He will be missed. And we can only hope that other Justices on the SCOTUS will spurn partisan labels and thoughtfully execute their duties for the betterment of our society.
RIP Justice Stevens.
Also I should note one of his most important decisions (Chevron) may be overturned. In brief it assured that Judges (non-experts) would not insert their nonexpertise and that Agency’s interpretations would be guided by . . . actual experts.