He was 99.
And one of the greats.
He served for 35 years.
Appointed by a Republican, but never ideological in his rulings. We need more like him.
Although there’s never been a Justice from Florida, he retired down here so we will count him!
RIP
The SDFLA Blog is dedicated to providing news and notes regarding federal practice in the Southern District of Florida. The New Times calls the blog "the definitive source on South Florida's federal court system." All tips on court happenings are welcome and will remain anonymous. Please email David Markus at dmarkus@markuslaw.com
3 comments:
Very interesting man. Came from a wealthy family in Chicago. Nominated by Gerald Ford back in the day when Senators did not give a rat's ass who was on the supreme court. I bet most senators did not even know his name after they voted for him. He sided with Rehnquist on the Bakke case and was an early proponent of capital punishment. He changed as he got older. Penned the dissent in Heller. Always a gentlemen. A friend of mine (not a lawyer) visited him occasionally in his condo in Fort Lauderdale. Said he was old and frail but had a wicked sense of humor and never lost his intellectual verve. RIP
Epstein prosecution...his new reality:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeOVbeh2yr0
Excerpt from Justice Stevens' Dissent in Citizens United:
In a democratic society, the longstanding consensus on the need to limit corporate campaign spending should outweigh the wooden application of judge-made rules. The majority’s rejection of this principle “elevate(s) corporations to a level of deference which has not been seen at least since the days when substantive due process was regularly used to invalidate regulatory legislation thought to unfairly impinge upon established economic interests.” Bellotti , 435 U. S., at 817, n. 13 (White, J., dissenting). At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.
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