Justice John Paul Stevens (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
He’s not someone who’s historically been a champion of either political camp. He was a humble person who despite his position and stature, was at ease with all kinds of people, and able to bring them together.
One of the things that was said about him repeatedly was that he was a “judge’s judge.” Especially in a day and age when both parties jockey — certainly more on the right — to nominate judges who they see as transforming the law and embracing fairly strong ideological positions. Justice Stevens was the opposite of that, someone who was very skeptical of that style of judging.
He really strove for a kind of fairness in his jurisprudence, a nuance that resists ideological characterizations. He wasn’t a hero of the right like [Antonin] Scalia, or a hero of the left like Brennan or [Thurgood] Marshall. He’s done his own thing and that idiosyncrasy has in some ways kept him from the limelight.
— Dean Eduardo Peñalver of Cornell Law School, a former law clerk to Justice John Paul Stevens, offering fond rembrances of the late justice in the wake of his passing.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.