". . . He also made forays into public debates. In 2018 he wrote an opinion piece, after a school shooting, calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. Later that year he declared in a speech that Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh was unqualified for the Supreme Court because of his partisan language during a Senate hearing on his fitness for the court over an accusation he sexually assaulted a girl during high school. . . ."
from "Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens, Who Led Liberal Wing, Dies At 99" by Linda Greenhouse, The New York Times, 16 July 2016
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/16/us/john-paul-stevens-dead.html?
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John Paul Stevens, a moderate Republican and former antitrust lawyer from Chicago who evolved into a savvy and sometimes passionate leader of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing and became the third-longest-serving justice on the court before he retired in 2010, died July 16 at a hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. He was 99.
The cause was complications from a stroke he suffered Monday, according to an announcement from the Supreme Court. The only justices who served longer were William O. Douglas, whom Justice Stevens replaced in 1975, and Stephen J. Field, a nominee of President Abraham Lincoln who served for much of the late 19th century.
During his 35-year tenure, Justice Stevens left his stamp on nearly every area of the law, writing the court’s opinions in landmark cases on government regulation, the death penalty, criminal law, intellectual property and civil liberties.
He also spoke for the court when it held presidents accountable under the law, writing the 1997 decision that required President Bill Clinton to face Paula Jones’s sexual harassment suit, and the 2006 opinion that barred President George W. Bush from holding military trials for prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba without congressional authorization.
But it was in his frequent dissenting opinions that Justice Stevens set forth a view of the law that seemed increasingly — but not automatically — liberal as the years went by and as the court shifted to the right.
Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on May 9, 2019. (Scott McIntyre/for The Washington Post)
A strong proponent of federal power, Justice Stevens sharply criticized the limitations Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and his fellow conservatives put on Congress’s power to define and remedy violations of federal law by the states.
In Bush v. Gore, the 2000 election case that helped George W. Bush win the presidency, Justice Stevens lamented in dissent that the five justices who backed Bush would “lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land.”. . . .
"John Paul Stevens, Longtime Leader Of Supreme Court's Liberal Wing, Dies at 99" by Charles Lane, The Washington Post, 16 July 2019
Copyright 2019 Martin P. All World Rights Expressly Reserved (no claim to The New York Times content nor The Washington Post content)
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