A Quote by Charles Evans Hughes
In a number of cases dissenting opinions have in time become the law.
Related Quotes
The dissenting opinions of one generation become the prevailing interpretation of the next.
Recognize that dissenting opinions are useful even when they're wrong, and go out of your way to reward them.
An event experienced is an event perceived, digested, and assimilated into the substance of our being, and the ratio between the number of cases seen and the number of cases assimilated is the measure of experience.
My dissenting opinions, like my briefs, are intended to persuade. And sometimes one must be forceful about saying how wrong the Court's decision is.
Dissenting opinions are useful even when they're wrong. So instead of speaking to highly agreeable audiences, target suggestions to people with a history of originality.
If you want criticisms, read the dissenting opinions of the Court. That will give you criticisms.
In 1986, Pakistan got the blasphemy law. So, while we had just two cases of blasphemy before that year, now we have thousands. It shows that one should be careful while bringing religion into legislation, because the law itself can become an instrument of persecution.
In our counterterrorism cases and our counterintelligence cases, we can issue all kinds of - of layers of approval in the FBI, a national security letter to find out the subscriber to a particular telephone number and to find out what numbers that telephone number was in contact with. Not the content of those communications, but just the connection.
Let's put it in perspective at the United States Supreme Court, which hears maybe 60 cases a year, most of the cases are resolved without much dispute. The 10 or 15 that are controversial we all know about, and we hear about. The federal courts hear just a tiny sliver of the cases that go to court in this country. Most of the cases are in the state courts. And most legal issues never go to court. So, the legal system is actually not in jeopardy. At the same time, access to law is in jeopardy.
This is a very, very conservative judge who in his dissenting opinions is overwhelmingly likely to be more conservative than the majority.
Never ask who's right. Start out by asking what is right. And you find that out by listening to dissenting, disagreeing opinions.
The successful politician owes his power to the fact that he moves within the accepted framework of thought, that he thinks and talks conventionally. It would be almost a contradiction in terms for a politician to be a leader in the field of ideas. His task in a democracy is to find out what the opinions held by the largest number are, not to give currency to new opinions which may become the majority view in some distant future.
My job is to write opinions. I decide cases and write opinions. It is not to respond to idiocy and critics who make statements that are unfounded. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't have constructive criticisms, but it should be constructive.
Evolution is the Law of Life
Number is the Law of the Universe
Unity is the Law of God
Around the country, ideas that originated on the hard right or in the fevered imaginations of conspiracy theorists are finding their way into the mainstream. In a number of cases, these ideas have become commonplace in American minds.
I tend to solicit opinions from all those around me. I like to hear opinions and the rationale behind it from everybody in the room. Perhaps it's the result of going to law school and using the Socratic method.
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