Judicial Quotes

#1. What are they going to do about it?"
"So far? Get drunk. Yell at each other or at us. Design theoretical judicial systems. Most of them seem to want the whole thing to just go away sot hey can get on with their research."
Murtry chuckled. "God bless the eggheads.

James S.A. Corey

#2. Human life is held in much higher esteem, and the taking of it, whether in private quarrel or by judicial procedure, is looked upon much more seriously than it was formerly.

Elihu Root

#3. Since I have difficulty defining merit and what merit alone means - and in any context, whether it's judicial or otherwise - I accept that different experiences in and of itself, bring merit to the system.

Sonia Sotomayor

#4. The acme of judicial distinction means the ability to look a lawyer straight in the eyes for two hours and not hear a damned word he says.

John Marshall

#5. Of the judicial department of the Government, the Supreme Court is the head and representative, and to it must come for final decision all the great legal questions which may arise under the Constitution, the laws, or the treaties of the United States.

Samuel Freeman Miller

#6. Dear Police:
You can't protect me and be scared of me.

Darnell Lamont Walker

#7. In fact cycling has always been 'saved' by judicial investigations and not by the anti-doping controls we put in place. That's the harsh truth. We have relied on them to clean the sport up.

David Millar

#8. Judge Fang got to eat this way only when someone really important was trying to taint him, and though he had never knowingly allowed his judicial judgment to be swayed, he did enjoy the chow.

Neal Stephenson

#9. The goal of the judicial system should be to rehabilitate wrongdoers rather than harming them,

Steven Pinker

#10. Behind this judicial wall of separation there is a tyranny of lies that will fall ... I say to you, my friends, let it fall!

Fob James

#11. Ending up in the right place in this debate requires starting in the right place. The right place to start is the proper discrimination of what judges are supposed to do, and the rest of the process should reflect this judicial job description.

Orrin Hatch

#12. Our Parliamentary system has simply failed to meet the challenge of judicial activism.

Stockwell Day

#13. We've seen filibusters to block judicial nominations, jobs bills, political transparency, ending Big Oil subsidies - you name it, there's been a filibuster.

Elizabeth Warren

#14. Once the Constitution became a legal rather than a political document, judicial review, although not judicial supremacy, became inevitable.

Gordon S. Wood

#15. The position the Government finds itself in is not one of constructing a law, but of carrying out a decision given by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

Charles Tupper

#16. If there are such things as political axioms, the propriety of the judicial power of a government being co-extensive with its legislative, may be ranked among the number.

Alexander Hamilton

#17. As Alexander Hamilton said in 'The Federalist Papers,' law is about the exercise of judgment and not will. Judicial activism is best understood as substituting judicial opinion for the command of law. The law is not an infinitely malleable tool.

Edwin Meese

#18. President Obama has earned my vote on the basis of his excellent judicial appointments, his consensus-building foreign policy and the improvements he has brought about in the disastrous economy he inherited.

Alan Dershowitz

#19. Legislative enactments proceed from men carrying their views a long time back; while judicial decisions are made off hand.

Aristotle.

#20. A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it.

Sam Ervin

#21. The vote by the Judiciary Committee reflects the fact that John Roberts is an exceptional nominee with a conservative judicial philosophy - a philosophy that represents mainstream America.

Jay Alan Sekulow

#22. Corrupt judicial practices in Russia, America, China, Great Britain, and other countries only vary by a single degree: the cost of services.

Christopher Mart

#23. How will we defend ourselves if the Patriot Act expires? Well, perhaps we could just rely on the Constitution and demonstrate exactly how traditional judicial warrants can gather all the info we need - and how bulk collection really hasn't worked.

Rand Paul

#24. This principle that judges are not politicians lies at the very heart of a judicial job - of the judicial job description.

Orrin Hatch

#25. While I have the greatest respect for the Supreme Court's members, I cannot claim familiarity with any particular judicial philosophies the justices might possess.

Patricia Millett

#26. I hope that the American public understands that we have three levels of government. We have the (unintelligible) the executive, but there's legislative and the judicial, and the legislative obviously need to be just doing their job.

Stockard Channing

#27. Judicial execution can never cancel or remove the atrocity it seeks to punish: it can only add a second atrocity to the original one.

Auberon Waugh

#28. We ought not to forget that the government, through all its departments, judicial as well as others, is administered by delegated and responsible agents; and that the power which really controls, ultimately, all the movements, is not in the agents, but those who elect or appoint them.

John C. Calhoun

#29. I considered my home sanctuary from the judicial arena, far from the Fernoza Family legacy, and I had no intention of sharing it with anyone.

A.E.H. Veenman

#30. To be effective, judicial administration must not be leaden-footed.

Felix Frankfurter

#31. It seems as though there are Members in this body who want to filibuster just about everything we try to do, whether it is stopping judicial nominations, the Energy bill, or this Medicare bill.

Jim Bunning

#32. As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.

Byron White

#33. Conservative voters increasingly understand that the one legacy a president can leave is his judicial appointments.

Paul Weyrich

#34. She [Justice sandra Day O'Connor] rejected the [George] Bush administration's claim that it could indefinitely detain a United States citizen. She upheld the fundamental principle of judicial review over the exercise of government power.

Patrick Leahy

#35. If there is a nuclear tactic being used here, I submit it is the use of that obstruction where a willful minority blocks a bipartisan majority from voting on the President's judicial nominees.

John Cornyn

#36. The debate over judicial nominations is a debate over the judiciary itself. It is a debate over how much power unelected judges should have in our system of government, how much control judges should have over a written constitution that belongs to the people.

Orrin Hatch

#37. There is a danger to judicial independence when people have no understanding of how the judiciary fits into the constitutional scheme.

David Souter

#38. No legislative, administrative or judicial activity in the Hong Kong SAR is allowed to contradict the Basic Law, let alone to go against the Basic Law.

Wu Bangguo

#39. The Lord Chief Justice of England recently said that the greater part of his judicial time was spent investigating collisions between propelled vehicles, each on its own side of the road, each sounding its horn and each stationary.

Philip Guedalla

#40. There is a difference between constitutional government and judicial dictatorship. And I think it's time we remembered that our Constitution was not put together in order to establish the sovereignty of the judges, it was framed in order to guarantee the sovereignty of the people.

Alan Keyes

#41. Heaven is the only place where prayers are not made.

Ellen J. Barrier

#42. Illegal immigration is crisis for our country. It is an open door for drugs, criminals, and potential terrorists to enter our country. It is straining our economy, adding costs to our judicial, healthcare, and education systems.

Timothy Murphy

#43. Individuals because of their identity can't render an impartial judgment is just deeply offensive and contrary to all the ideals of the judicial system that we value.

Deborah Rhode

#44. Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman.' Wouldn't they have to withdraw? New racism is no better than old racism.

Newt Gingrich

#45. If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction in seeing your guest hold up his wineglass to the light and look judicial.

George Eliot

#46. Regardless of the fact Denker was a sadistic killer, and not an innocent man. The judicial system seemed designed to keep those killers alive for as long as possible, regardless of evidence, or the hurt it caused the victims' families -

Toni Anderson

#47. Trees have judicial standing, and probably grass too.

William O. Douglas

#48. No judicial nomination should answer any question that is designed to reveal how the nominee will rule on any issue that could come before the court.

Jon Kyl

#49. I intend to go right on appointing highly qualified individuals of the highest personal integrity to the bench, individuals who understand the danger of short-circuiting the electoral process and disenfranchising the people through judicial activism.

Ronald Reagan

#50. Convergence of technology and the judicial system is the need-of-the-hour. We need to go digital and adopt online analysis of legal cases. Dissemination of legal knowledge to the common man will also a go a long way in improving the law and order situation in the country.

Narendra Modi

#51. My concern is not for the judicial system, but for the reality that the shark fin mafia of Costa Rica has a price on my head, and a Costa Rican prison would provide an excellent opportunity for someone to exercise this lethal contract against me.

Paul Watson

#52. Appeal to all scholars of stupidity in the world. Come to Italy, this country has the highest rate of morons of the universe, especially among political, bureaucratic, judicial, religious, intellectual, artistic, and mass media members, so it is the best place to develop your own field research.

William C. Brown

#53. Borders are scratched across the hearts of men By strangers with a calm, judicial pen, And when the borders bleed we watch with dread The lines of ink across the map turn red.

Marya Mannes

#54. Judicial excellence requires candor before confirmation. We are being asked to give the nominee enormous power.

Herb Kohl

#55. I suppose that's because you have faith in the judicial system that will try us." "Yes. I have faith that we will be found guilty and that we will be shot." "Your faith will be rewarded." "Why? It hasn't been for the last few years.

Mark Helprin

#56. At the heart of the American paradigm is the perception that law and its agents . . . police officers, correctional officers, attorneys and judges . . . are color-blind and thus justice is impartial, objective and seeks la verdad (the truth). But, la realidad (reality) differs.

Martin Guevara Urbina

#57. Politics is corrupting the American judicial system in much the same way the judicial system was corrupted in Nazi Germany.

Benjamin Carson

#58. When a court goes too far, it actually weakens our respect for judicial institutions.

Newt Gingrich

#59. The president does not have any obligation to make a consensus appointment here. What the president's obligation is, is to pick a judicial conservative, and I believe that's what he's gonna do.

Jay Alan Sekulow

#60. In the rare event that the Supreme Court refuses to play along there is always a perfectly legal, extra-constitutional, quasi-legislative, quasi-executive, quasi-judicial, 'independent' regulatory commission or executive agency to kill off or override constitutional protections.

Ilana Mercer

#61. Nothing has yet been offered to invalidate the doctrine that the meaning of the Constitution may as well be ascertained by the Legislative as by the Judicial authority.

James Madison

#62. The activists will not stop in trying to impose their extreme views on the rest of us, and they have now plotted out a state-by-state strategy to increase the number of judicial decisions redefining marriage without the voice of the people being heard.

Jim Bunning

#63. The standard of good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy is certainly one of the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government.

Alexander Hamilton

#64. Judge Samuel Alito, millions of Americans are concerned about your nomination. They're worried that you would be a judicial activist who would restrict our rights and freedoms.

Dick Durbin

#65. Straining to appear judicial, he turned toward the jury box. "The jurors shall disregard the last ... uh ... colloquy between the witness and defense counsel." Might as well ask the residents of Pompeii to ignore the volcano.

Paul Levine

#66. I think judicial temperament is a willingness to step back from your own committed views of the correct jurisprudential approach and evaluate those views in terms of your role as a judge. It's the difference between being a judge and being a law professor.

John Roberts

#67. So the danger of conservative judicial activism has been averted for another year. Stay tuned.

Michael Kinsley

#68. We call on the Senate to reject any judicial nominee who does not affirm fundamental civil rights, including a woman's right [to obtain an abortion on demand]. The threat an [pro-life] judiciary poses to women's lives demands nothing less.

Susana Martinez

#69. Judicial activism, by definition, is a term applied to judges who render decisions with which you disagree.

James W. Mercer

#70. One is entitled to say without qualification that the correlation between prior judicial experience and fitness for the Supreme Court is zero.

Felix Frankfurter

#71. That part of the judicial law which
was typical of Christ's government
has ceased, but that part which is of
common and general equity remains
still in force. It is a common maxim:
those judgments which are common
and natural are moral and perpetual.

Samuel Bolton

#72. This led to a lessening of confidence in the judicial system. Justice, it seemed, was available only to those who could pay enough to secure a 'right verdict

Alison Weir

#73. An immigration violation should not give the government license to rip up the rule book. By restricting judicial oversight and blocking public scrutiny, the government has exercised virtually unchecked power over those it has detained.

Jamie Fellner

#74. EXECUTIVE, n. An officer of the Government, whose duty it is to enforce the wishes of the legislative power until such time as the judicial department shall be pleased to pronounce them invalid and of no effect.

Ambrose Bierce

#75. We must apply a judicial rather than a political standard to the information before us [if choosing a Judge].

Orrin Hatch

#76. The judicial system is the most expensive machine ever invented for finding out what happened and what to do about it.

Irving R. Kaufman

#77. Scorecards are common in the political process, but they are inappropriate in the judicial process. The most important tools in the judicial confirmation process are not litmus paper and a calculator.

Orrin Hatch

#78. The people in general ought to have regard to the moral character of those whom they invest with authority either in the legislative, executive, or judicial branches.

John Witherspoon

#79. In the fight against terrorism, national agencies keep full control over their police forces, security and intelligence agencies and judicial authorities.

Gijs De Vries

#80. Judicial excellence means that a Supreme Court justice must have a sense of the values from which our core of our political- economic system goes. In other words, we should not approve any nominee whose extreme judicial philosophy would undermine rights and liberties relied upon by all Americans.

Herb Kohl

#81. Throw in neglect and politicization of the judicial system and you see the result: soaring rates of cocaine trafficking through Venezuela and worsening corruption of institutions.

Rory Carroll

#82. Central planning, judicial activism, and the nanny state all presume vastly more knowledge than any elite have ever possessed.

Thomas Sowell

#83. To the somnambulist, sleep-walking may seem more pleasant and less hazardous than wakeful walking, but the latter is the wiser mode of locomotion in the congested traffic of a modern community. It is about time to abandon judicial somnambulism.

Jerome Frank

#84. It is emphatically the province and duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is.

John Marshall

#85. It may seem ironic that the judicial branch preserves its legitimacy through refraining from action on political questions. That concept was put forward best by Justice [Felix] Frankfurter, appointed by President [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt.

Sam Brownback

#86. A question arises whether all the powers of government, legislative, executive, and judicial, shall be left in this body? I think a people cannot be long free, nor ever happy, whose government is in one Assembly.

John Adams

#87. The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.

Eric Holder

#88. Let there be no reservation or doubt that I believe the Senate should vote on each and every judicial appointment made by the President of the United States and that no rule or procedure should ever stop the Senate from exercising its constitutional responsibility.

Johnny Isakson

#89. The only guarantee of the Bill of Rights which continues to have any force and effect is the one prohibiting quartering troops on citizens in time of peace. All the rest have been disposed of by judicial interpretation and legislative whittling.

H.L. Mencken

#90. The only attitude (the only politics
judicial, medical, pedagogical and so forth) I would absolutely condemn is one which, directly or indirectly, cuts off the possibility of an essentially interminable questioning, that is, an effective and thus transforming questioning.

Jacques Derrida

#91. In war, force is used by the belligerents themselves, no effort being made to bring evildoers before a judicial body, each army acting as judge, jury and executioner.

Kirby Page

#92. Our liberal political and judicial systems are founded on the belief that every individual has a sacred inner nature, indivisible and immutable, which gives meaning to the world, and which is the source of all ethical and political authority.

Yuval Noah Harari

#93. It's true that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:1), but this does not mean God will condone all our thoughts and behaviors. Though in Christ he overlooks our sins in a judicial sense, he is not blind to them.

Kevin DeYoung

#94. I've written about superheroes. I've written about talking ferrets and math geniuses being chased by madmen. I've written about spies and demon-hunting soccer moms. I've created an entire world that centers around a paranormal judicial system.

Julie Kenner

#95. The truth of the matter is there is significant debate among judicial scholars today as to whether or not we've gone off on the wrong path with regard to Supreme Court decisions.

Joe Biden

#96. All respect for the office of the presidency aside, I assumed that the obvious and unadulterated decline of freedom and constitutional sovereignty, not to mention the efforts to curb the power of judicial review, spoke for itself.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

#97. In the political context fair means somebody that will vote for the unions or for the business. It can't mean that in the judicial context or we're in real trouble.

Anthony Kennedy

#98. When the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay, it touched nothing less spotless than itself.

Daniel Webster

#99. In the "Personal Story" segment tonight, the state of Oregon is extremely liberal in its state government and judicial system.That state has lenient drug laws, including wide access to medical marijuana.

Bill O'Reilly

#100. A decision by the Supreme Court to subject Guantanamo to judicial review would eliminate these advantages.

John Yoo