4 Byron White Quotes on Judiciary

Byron White quotes on judiciary

1. 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.

5. The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution:. There should be, therefore, great resistance to : redefining the category of rights deemed to be fundamental. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily takes to itself further authority to govern the country without express constitutional authority.

7. I cannot think of a single answer that I made in the years that I argued before the Court while Justice White sat on it that seemed to satisfy him. While I won a number of cases that I argued before him, and he voted for my side in most of them, I never had the sense that anything I said pleased him. White, a former All-American running back (whose much-repeated college nickname, Whizzer, was one that appalled him), was no fan of press claims for broad First Amendment protection. He invariably asked questions that were both pointed and powerful.

8. The same qualities that made him a memorable jurist would make him a lightning rod for fierce opposition if he were named to the Supreme Court now.