Page 13 - HOH

A4 U.S. NEWS
Wednesday 17 July 2019

Former Supreme Court Justice

John Paul Stevens dies at 99

By MARK SHERMAN and stroke Monday. He was 99. "I think as part of my gen-
CONNIE CASS During nearly 35 years on eral politics, I'm pretty darn
Associated Press the court, Stevens stood conservative."
WASHINGTON (AP) — John for the freedom and dig- The way Stevens saw it, he
Paul Stevens, the bow- nity of individuals, be they held to the same ground,
tied, independent-thinking, students or immigrants or but the court had shifted
Republican-nominated prisoners. He acted to limit steadily to the right over
justice who unexpectedly the death penalty, squelch the decades, creating the
emerged as the Supreme official prayer in schools, illusion that he was moving
In this May 20, 2013 file photo, retired U.S. Supreme Court Jus-
tice John Paul Stevens talks about his views and career during a Court's leading liberal, died establish gay rights, pro- leftward.
forum at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston. Tuesday in Fort Lauderdale, mote racial equality and He did change his views
Associated Press Florida, after suffering a preserve legal abortion. on some issues, however.
He protected the rights of He morphed from a critic
crime suspects and illegal of affirmative action to a
immigrants facing depor- supporter, and came to
tation. believe the death penalty
He influenced fellow jus- was wrong.
tices to give foreign terror- His legal reasoning was of-
ism suspects held for years ten described as unpredict-
at the Guantanamo Bay, able or idiosyncratic, espe-
Cuba, naval base the right cially in his early years on
to plead for their release in the court. He was a prolific
U.S. courts. writer of separate opinions
Stevens served more than laying out his own thinking,
twice the average tenure whether he agreed or dis-
for a justice, and was only agreed with the majority's
the second to mark his 90th ruling.
birthday on the high court. Yet Stevens didn't consid-
From his appointment by er his methods novel. He
President Gerald Ford in tended toward a case-by-
1975 through his retirement case approach, avoided
in June 2010, he shaped sweeping judicial philoso-
decisions that touched phies, and stayed mindful
countless aspects of Ameri- of precedent.
can life. The white-haired Stevens,
He remained an active eyes often twinkling behind
writer and speaker into his owlish glasses, was the pic-
late 90s, surprising some ture of old-fashioned ge-
when he came out against niality on the court and off.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh's He took an unusually cour-
confirmation following Ka- teous tone with lawyers
vanaugh's angry denial of arguing their cases, but
sexual assault allegations. he was no pushover. After
Stevens wrote an autobi- his fellow justices fired off
ography, "The Making of a questions, Stevens would
Justice: My First 94 Years," politely weigh in. "May I ask
that was released just af- a question?" he'd ask gen-
ter his 99th birthday in April tly, then quickly slice to the
2019. weakest point of a lawyer's
At first considered a cen- argument.
trist, Stevens came to be Stevens was especially
seen as a lion of liberalism. concerned with the plight
But he rejected that char- of ordinary citizens up
acterization. against the government or
"I don't think of myself as a other powerful interests —
liberal at all," Stevens told a type of struggle he wit-
The New York Times in 2007. nessed as a boy.q