John Paul Stevens

John Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) is an American jurist and the senior Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He joined the Court in 1975 and is the oldest and longest serving incumbent member of the Court. He is the only current Associate Justice to have served under three Chief Justices.

Early life

Stevens was born in Chicago, Illinois, to a wealthy family who had made their fortune in the hotel business. He is married to Maryan Mulholland and has four children from a previous marriage: John Joseph (deceased), Kathryn, Elizabeth Jane, and Susan Roberta. He also has five step-children: Catherine, Carolyn, Daniel, Terrence and Jerome.

He attended the University of Chicago Lab School, and received an A.B. from the University of Chicago, where Stevens was also a member of the Omega chapter of Psi Upsilon. After serving in the United States Navy from 1942 to 1945 as an intelligence officer (for which service he was awarded a Bronze Star), Stevens returned to Illinois where he was persuaded by a family friend, who was a lawyer, to attend law school. Stevens earned his J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law, where he was Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review and graduated with the highest grades in the history of the Law School, obtaining an academic record that remains unsurpassed to this day.

Legal and judicial career

Upon graduation, he served as a law clerk to Justice Wiley Rutledge of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1947 Term; this service, Stevens has said, deeply inspired him, as evident from his Rutledgean focus on the careful interpretation of the facts in a case present in his opinions. He was admitted to law practice in Illinois in 1949 and served as Associate Counsel to the Subcommittee on the Study of Monopoly Power of the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1951-1952, and a member of the Attorney General's National Committee to Study Antitrust Law, 1953-1955. He was Second Vice President of the Chicago Bar Association in 1970, and served as a professor of antitrust litigation at the University of Chicago and Northwestern law schools off and on throughout his career. He was widely regarded by colleagues as an extraordinarily capable and impressive lawyer with a fantastic memory and analytical ability, and authored a number of influential works on antitrust law.

From November 2, 1970 to 1975, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, nominated by President Nixon. President Ford then nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court in 1975 to replace Justice William O. Douglas, who resigned that year, and he took his seat December 19, 1975, after being confirmed 99-0 by the Senate.

As the senior Associate Justice, Stevens assumes the administrative duties of the court whenever the post of Chief Justice of the United States is vacant or the Chief Justice is unable to perform his job; Justice Stevens last performed this function in September 2005, between the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist and the swearing-in of new Chief Justice John Roberts.

Judicial philosophy

On the Seventh Circuit of Appeals, John Paul Stevens had a moderately conservative record. Early in his tenure on the Supreme Court Stevens had a moderate voting record. He voted to reinstate capital punishment in the United States and opposed the affirmative action program at issue in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. But on the more conservative Rehnquist Court, Stevens tended to side with the more liberal-leaning Justices on issues such as abortion rights, gay rights and federalism. His Segal-Cover score, a measure of liberalism/conservatism of Court members, is the second highest on the court (higher scores indicate a more liberal reputation). A transformed lagged behavior measure places him as more liberal. He is a relatively consistent liberal, but has voted with the conservative bloc in a number of high profile cases, including, for example, his refusal to recognize a right to burn the American flag as a speech act in Texas v. Johnson (see below).

Stevens's jurisprudence has usually been characterized as idiosyncratic; he often adopts unusual or lonely positions on issues. Stevens, unlike most justices, usually writes the first drafts of his opinions himself and reviews petitions for certiorari within his chambers instead of having his law clerks participate as part of the cert pool. He is not an originalist (such as fellow Justice Antonin Scalia) nor a pragmatist (such as Judge Richard Posner), nor does he pronounce himself a cautious liberal (such as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg). He has been considered part of the liberal bloc of the court since the mid-1980s.

In 1983's Michigan v. Long, for example, Stevens dissented from the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning the Michigan Supreme Court's interpretation of federal law, arguing that state court decisions granting people rights under the federal constitution that nullify complained-of state action should not be disturbed by federal courts. In 1985's Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Stevens argued against the Supreme Court's famous "strict scrutiny" doctrine for laws involving "suspect classifications", putting forth the view that all classifications should be evaluated on the basis of the "rational basis" test as to whether they could have been enacted by an "impartial legislature".

Stevens was once an impassioned critic of affirmative action, voting in 1978 to invalidate the affirmative action program at issue in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. He also dissented in 1980's Fullilove v. Klutznick, which upheld a minority set-aside program. He gradually shifted his position over the years and voted to uphold the somewhat different affirmative action program at the University of Michigan Law School challenged in 2003's Grutter v. Bollinger.

Stevens wrote the majority opinion in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), which held that certain military commissions had been improperly constituted.

Freedom of speech

Stevens's views on obscenity under the First Amendment have changed over the years. Initially quite critical of constitutional protection for obscenity, rejecting a challenge to Detroit zoning ordinances that barred adult theatres in designated areas in 1976's Young v. American Mini Theatres ("though we recognize that the First Amendment will not tolerate the total suppression of erotic materials that have some arguably artistic value, it is manifest that society's interest in protecting this type of expression is of a wholly different, and lesser, magnitude than the interest in untrammeled political debate"), Stevens now adheres firmly to a libertarian free speech approach on obscenity issues, voting to strike down a federal law regulating "virtual" child pornography in 2004's ACLU v. Ashcroft, where in a concurring opinion Stevens argued that while "As a parent, grandparent, and great-grandparent", he endorsed the legislative goal of protecting children from pornography "without reservation," "As a judge, I must confess to a growing sense of unease when the interest in protecting children from prurient materials is invoked as a justification for using criminal regulation of speech as a substitute for, or a simple backup to, adult oversight of children's viewing." [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=03-218

Perhaps the most personal and unusual feature of his jurisprudence is his continual referencing of World War II in his opinions, which Stevens often cites in an attempt to appeal to shared patriotic, American values. For example, Stevens, a World War II veteran, was visibly angered by liberal attorney William Kunstler's flippant defense of flag-burning in oral argument in 1989's Texas v. Johnson and voted to uphold a prohibition on flag-burning against a First Amendment argument. Wrote Stevens, "The ideas of liberty and equality have been an irresistible force in motivating leaders like Patrick Henry, Susan B. Anthony, and Abraham Lincoln, schoolteachers like Nathan Hale and Booker T. Washington, the Philippine Scouts who fought at Bataan, and the soldiers who scaled the bluff at Omaha Beach. If those ideas are worth fighting for - and our history demonstrates that they are - it cannot be true that the flag that uniquely symbolizes their power is not itself worthy of protection from unnecessary desecration."

Criticism and praise

Stevens has drawn criticism from some on the right, who point to him as one of a number of justices (Justice Souter being another) who were appointed by a Republican president yet moved more and more towards the left as the years passed. At the time of Stevens' appointment, Senator James A. McClure questioned President Ford about Stevens and was told that Stevens would "vote like a good Republican." Still no one was sure what that meant - Ford's appointments to other Federal courts ranged from very conservative to moderately liberal. Unlike some other Republican Presidents, such as Eisenhower (with Justice Brennan and Chief Justice Warren), Nixon (with Justice Blackmun and to some extent Justice Powell), and George H.W. Bush (with Souter), who were reportedly displeased with the later rulings of some of their appointments, President Ford recently praised Stevens: "He is serving his nation well, with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns."[http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-10-09-bush-miers-edit_x.htm

Stevens has given lectures on the importance of "learning on the job" and treating the law with flexibility, citing as one example his former disapproval and current support of some affirmative action policies ^*.

As his seniority grew in the closing decade of the Rehnquist court, Stevens was often the senior justice on one side of a split decision and thereby entitled to assign the writing of the opinion. He almost always writes a dissenting opinion when in dissent and writes concurring opinions more often than most other justices historically.

Even though Justice Stevens is 86 years old, he has not shown any hints of opting for retirement. On the contrary, Stevens actively participates in questioning during the oral arguments before the Court and still plays tennis regularly. His possible retirement is a highly debated topic in legal and political circles in the U.S. Justice Stevens would be almost 89 years old if he remains on the court until the end of President Bush's term in 2009. There have been widespread rumors on Capitol Hill that Justice Stevens plans on retiring after the midterm elections in November, 2006. Other rumors state he is planning on retirement upon the next presidential election as well as waiting to see how Bush's first two appointments shape the court. Also he has hired law clerks to work for him through the year 2008.

Trivia

In order to pass Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. as the oldest serving Justice of the Supreme Court, Stevens would have to serve until Wednesday, February 23, 2011. Stevens would be almost 91 years old by then.

In order to pass his predecessor Justice William O. Douglas as the longest serving Justice of the Supreme Court, Stevens would have to serve until Saturday, June 18, 2012. Stevens will have served for more than 36 years by then.

According to the late Chief Justice Rehnquist, Stevens employs three law clerks, one fewer than his colleagues.

Justice Stevens does not participate in the cert pool, meaning he and his clerks personally review every single petition.

Stevens is one of very few holders of public office within the United States to wear a bow tie.

External links

Supreme court official bio (PDF)

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