History or custom or social utility or some compelling sense of justice or sometimes perhaps a semi-intuitive apprehension of the pervading spirit of our law must come to the rescue of the anxious judge and tell him where to go.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
A judge who likes every outcome he reaches is very likely a bad judge... stretching for results he prefers rather than those the law demands.
Justice is a certain rectitude of mind whereby a man does what he ought to do in the circumstances confronting him.
People must be confident that a judge's decisions are determined by the law and only the law. He must be faithful to the Constitution and statutes passed by Congress. Fidelity to the Constitution and the law has been the cornerstone of my life and the hallmark of the kind of judge I have tried to be.
If we lived in a world where we had the rule of a judge, rather than the rule of law, you would have seen an absolute sea change, an avulsive change in the law as it was interpreted, applied and rendered by our court.
Our role as judges is to interpret the law.
Practicing in the trial work trenches of the law, I saw, too, that when we judges don our robes, it doesn't make us any smarter, but it does serve as a reminder of what's expected of us: Impartiality and independence, collegiality and courage.
A good and faithful judge ever prefers the honorable to the expedient.
But one way or another, judges perform a very vital function in our society. They have a risky job and they are entitled to security.
The judge is not the knight-errant, roaming at will in pursuit of his own ideal of beauty or of goodness.
Whoever has witnessed another's ideal becomes his inexorable judge and as it were his evil conscience.