60 Quotes by Stephen Breyer

Remember, 100 or 150 years ago, you could walk down the street, your neighbors might see you, they'd watch what you do,

Well it's fairly important that everyone have a lawyer and so we have a system that you can't convict a person without a lawyer, even if he's guilty.

Well, just that there would be somebody in the office and the voters - it was more or less an understanding in the entire community, as long as that person was doing a good job on the merits, nobody was going to run against him.

Virginia is now pursuing an execution schedule that leaves less time for argument and for court consideration than the court's rules provide for ordinary cases.

Breyer said, ''that certainly looks to text, certainly looks to history, certainly looks to tradition and precedent -- but that also emphasizes heavily the purpose of this particular provision and the consequences as viewed in terms of the purposes, is more likely to get at what this law is about, what area of human life it is seeking to affect and how. That's what I think the essence of law is.

Speed in reaching a final decision may help create legal certainty,

Once you're in a system where there are contributions being made, it's certainly not the case that everybody expects something back.

At least there's a political input, but when you put on the robe, at that point the politics is over.

At the same time, we do live in a democracy. And for that reason I think it is appropriate to have some element of public control.