Getting to Know Me

John Paul Stevens with fellow Supreme Court Justices, President Obama, and Vice-President Obama in 2009

John Paul Stevens with fellow Supreme Court Justices, President Obama, and Vice-President Biden in 2009

Hello there! My name is John Paul Stevens, and I was one of the longest-serving Supreme Court Justices after serving for 35 years. I was appointed by President Gerald Ford as a Justice in 1975 and retired recently in 2010. Prior to that, I was in the Navy during World War II and was a successful antitrust lawyer after the war. During my time as a lawyer, I was selected to take part in several councils for the House of Representatives and the US Attorney General’s Office. My success as a lawyer even got me appointed as a judge to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 1970 by President Richard Nixon.

Judicially, I was well-known for being extremely independent. I did have my tendencies either way, but I mainly kept it down the middle. When it comes to the First Amendment, I usually supported free speech. There were three main situations where I did not support it, though. For one, I didn’t support having government support for religious schools or having religion endorsed by public schools. I also didn’t believe in having obscenity and offensive materials protected under free speech in my early career, but I later changed my mind on this issue. I was lastly adamantly against burning the flag. In fact, the case I am most known for, Texas vs. Johnson, focused on just that. I so strongly disagreed with the ruling, which said Americans can burn the flag, to the point where I was extremely angry while reading my dissent aloud to those in the court. Otherwise, I was normally calm and was good at debating the issues at hand.

 

SOURCES

http://www.oyez.org/justices/john_paul_stevens

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=5&sid=752a5cdb-3eae-451d-a3ab-f28d4df908ed%40sessionmgr4003&hid=4101&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=f5h&AN=32424245

John Paul Stevens and the Constitution: the search for balance by Robert Judd Sickels

John Paul Stevens: an independent life by Bill Barnhart and Gene Schlickman

Photo – https://www.flickr.com/photos/changedotgov/3198083750/in/photolist-5U8K39-5SB1T1-81PGwB-4QQQMs

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