Warren Burger Quotes

Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986
Judicial Liberty

“Free speech carries with it some freedom to listen.”

"Calculated risks of abuse are taken in order to preserve higher values."

"Crime and the fear of crime have permeated the fabric of American life."

"The trial of a case is a three-legged stool - a judge and two advocates."

"Judges rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to pressures of the times."

“There may be some incorrigible human beings who cannot be changed except by God's own mercy to that one person.”

"To hold that the act of homosexual sodomy is somehow protected as a fundamental right would be to cast aside millennia of moral teaching."

"We are more casual about qualifying the people we allow to act as advocates in the courtroom than we are about licensing electricians."

"A far greater factor than abolishing poverty is the deterrent effect of swift and certain consequences: swift arrest, prompt trial, certain penalty and - at some point - finality of judgment."

"It is not unprofessional to give free legal advice, but advertising that the first visit will be free is a bit like a fox telling chickens he will not bite them until they cross the threshold of the hen house."

"Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. This is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America."

"There can be no assumption that today's majority is "right" and the Amish and others like them are "wrong." A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no rights or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different."

"Neither the doctrine of separation of powers, nor the need for confidentiality of high-level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances. The President's need for complete candor and objectivity from advisors calls for great deference from the courts. However, when the privilege depends solely on the broad, undifferentiated claim of public interest in the confidentiality of such conversations, a confrontation with other values arises."

Compiled by Thomas George
editor@liberty-vs-tyranny.com/