Quotes & Sayings About Court Hearings

Before, mostly for commitment hearings held in a makeshift court — Jean Hanff Korelitz

As we watched Judge Clarence
Thomas's Supreme Court confirmation
hearings, all of the commentators
said the same thing: 'One of these
people in the room is lying.' Do you
believe that? You've got two lawyers
and 14 senators in the room, and only
one of them is lying? — Jay Leno

The Tax Court is independent, and its neutrality is not clouded by prosecuting duties. Its procedures assure fair hearings. Its deliberations are evidenced by careful opinions. All guides to judgment available to judges are habitually consulted and respected. It has established a tradition of freedom from bias and pressures. It deals with a subject that is highly specialized and so complex as to be the despair of judges. It is relatively better staffed for its task than is the judiciary. — Robert H. Jackson

The issue of gay marriage has reached the Supreme Court and observers are analyzing every detail to predict how each justice will vote. Experts say Chief Justice John Roberts is likely to rule in favor of gay marriage based on the fact that he spent Tuesday's hearings watching the Tony Award nominations. — David Letterman

The president has the right to select who he wants for the Supreme Court. He doesn't have to get it cleared from Congress, Senate or anybody ... No president before this has come under this kind of scrutiny ... before the committee hearings even begin. — Montel Williams

The outcome of the Clarence Thomas hearings and his subsequent appointment to the Supreme Court shows how misguided, narrow notions of racial solidarity that suppress dissent and critique can lead black folks to support individuals who will not protect their rights. — Bell Hooks

While the president is to nominate that individual [to Supreme Court], we in the Senate must provide our advice and consent. This function is not well-defined. The Constitution does not set down a road map. It does not require hearings. In fact, it does not even require questioning on your understanding of the Constitution nor the role of the Supreme Court. — Mike DeWine

William Howard Taft, who he embarrassed in these congressional hearings, attacks him as an emotionalist and a socialist and a cosmopolitan in terms that kind of have an anti-Semitic overtone. And even the pro-Brandeis press supported him in terms that really seem creepy today. There's this piece from Life magazine. It says, "Mr. Brandeis is a Jew. And until now there's never been a Jew on the Supreme Court. Perhaps it's time we have one." — Jeffrey Rosen

Robert Bork, at opening of Judiciary hearings:
How should a judge go about finding the law? The only legitimate way, in my opinion, is by attempting to discern what those who made the law intended ...
As I wrote in an opinion for our court, the judge's responsibility is to discern how the framers' values, defined in the context of the world they knew, apply in the world we know.
If a judge abandons intentions as his guide, there is no law available to him, and he begins to legislate a social agenda for the American people. That goes well beyond his powers.. — Joe Biden

Parents choosing a school for their children - an innocent, important, humdrum, private affair which a lethal blend of bitter division and too much money had transmuted into a monstrous clerical task, into box files of legal documents so numerous and heavy they were hauled to court on trolleys, into hours of educated wrangling, procedural hearings, deferred decisions, the whole circus rising, but so slowly, through the judicial hierarchy like a lopsided, ill-tethered hot-air balloon. If the parents could not agree, the law, reluctantly, must take the decisions. — Ian McEwan

In my opinion, Chief Justice Roberts put it best during his recent confirmation hearings. And he said, and I quote, "The framers were not the sort of people, having fought a revolution to get the right of self-government to sit down and say, 'Well, let's take all the difficult issues before us and let's have the judges decide them.' That would have been the farthest thing from their mind," however, I fear that the Supreme Court forgets this advice. — Mike DeWine

He suspended habeas corpus, arrested newspaper editors, jailed Northerners without hearings or trials, bypassed Congress, ignored the Supreme Court, and even arrested a member of Congress. He justified these violations as part of the Executive's War Powers and claimed that he violated the Constitution for the sole purpose of protecting it. — James D. Best