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I've long favored smart judicial-selection reform - every member of my court does - and every legislative session, reform measures are filed... and then they fail.

Those who made and endorsed our Constitution knew man's nature, and it is to their ideas, rather than to the temptations of utopia, that we must ask that our judges adhere.

Our democracy, our constitutional framework is really a kind of software for harnessing the creativity and political imagination for all of our people. The American democratic system was an early political version of Napster.

If there is one set of laws, one Constitution for every citizen, its protections hopefully applied equally to all, then why do the results seem to differ so radically? What do you call that? Look around - you're living in it.

We may have lured judges into roaming at large in the constitutional field.

The U.S. Constitution is the basic framework for the greatest democracy on Earth. Some of my colleagues find it easy to amend it. I don't.

If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want to bring you flexibility, think again. You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion? Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That's flexibility.

Lots of countries have great constitutions, but their leaders have a practice of ignoring the rules whenever they feel like it.

The death of chief justice Rehnquist and the president's nomination of John Roberts raises the stakes for the court and the American people exponentially.

Laws and constitutions ought to be weighed... to constitute that which is most conducing to the establishment of justice and liberty.