Edward Lazarus Quotations

Liberals, the moderates and conservatives on the bench have been feeling out Chief Justice Roberts to see ... what kinds of arguments appeal to him, what kind of person is he.

She doesn't give much guidance to other courts in her rulings, there's a lack of consistency, distinctiveness. Often it seems her opinions are too narrow, reflecting only how it strikes just Justice O'Connor, what she personally thinks.

She is arguably the most influential woman in the United States, ... Closed Chamber: An Inside Account of the Supreme Court.

I think we can be pretty darn sure he's not another Scalia.

Some of the things he has said can't be good news to conservatives,

I think if, Kerry wins there's a reasonable chance that you might see Justice Stevens step down, ... And if Bush wins, I think there's a reasonable chance you'd see the chief step down. I think we're getting close to it.

Most of the cases they work on are boring from a layman's point of view, but important, and ferocious, from an economic point of view.

We have this idealistic notion in this country that we can live in kind of splendid anonymity, we can walk around and be left alone. And this question really raises, in the post-9/11 era, the issue of whether that's really true anymore.

There is a very steep learning curve, even for someone as versed in constitutional law as Roberts is.

And then the question becomes, can the guidelines in general be maintained or will the guidelines be thrown out? And we then go back to the regime that existed before the guidelines under which judges had tremendous sentencing discretion. That's another big question in this case.

This is a situation where, from the very moment the justices start back up in October, they're going to be very divided,

There's a certain romanticism about the court's role in American life, the ability of the court to be a moral beacon for the country, that drives justices to take progressive stands.

This law does seem to be crafted to demand some kind of Supreme Court review. Because it really goes to this question of how much you have to protect the life versus the health of the mother. ... And it actually could be one of those cases that could turn on John Roberts' vote.

It sounds great from an institutional standpoint. Maybe the Court could do a better job of persuasion. But it won't come overnight. If Roberts leads by example and writes clearly and talks to his colleagues, it may happen.

The odds are that the federal sentencing guidelines will be ruled unconstitutional, ... Closed Chambers.

The better argument for the result reached in Roe v. Wade is that it's necessary for the equality of women, rather than grounding it in the privacy right, ... Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall, and Future of the Modern Supreme Court.

It will be more chaotic than an ordinary term. It adds an extra layer of difficulty for Roberts coming in as the new chief.

The conference itself is not a place of debate, ... They don't engage across the conference table.