Upon Tuesday's death of retired Justice John Paul Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court, two well-known lawyers in Atlanta who clerked for Stevens agreed to share their thoughts on him with the readers of the Daily Report. Teresa Wynn Roseborough, now the top lawyer at the Home Depot, clerked for Stevens during the 1987-88 term. Robert A. Schapiro, a former dean of Emory University School of Law and now a professor there, clerked for the justice during the 1991-92 term. Their remarks are below—Roseborough's and then Schapiro's.

Stevens Went 'Without Fear or Restraint Where Facts and Law Led'

I am deeply saddened by the death of Justice John Paul Stevens.

Justice Stevens was both a remarkable man and a remarkable jurist. I had the honor of working with him for one year, and I am fond of telling those who ask me about that year that he is the sort of man that, even had he been the proprietor of a service station rather than a justice of the Supreme Court, I would have been just as proud to work for him and would have been just as much enriched by his intellect, his professionalism, his love for this country and its Constitution, his sense of fairness, his devotion to the protection of liberty, his gentle good humor and his humility.

It is well known that Justice Stevens was appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States by President Gerald Ford in 1975 and that he left the court in 2010 as the longest serving member of the court and as the third longest serving justice in history after 34 years, 6 months and 11 days of service. Before his death, President Ford said that his appointment of Justice Stevens was one of the greatest acts of his presidency.  

Allow me to share with you briefly a few lesser known facts about Justice Stevens.

He was born in Chicago and grew up in the Hyde Park area, the son of an entrepreneur and an English teacher.

 Justice Stevens was a sportsman. He was a skilled player of both tennis and golf and played one or both virtually every week. 

He was also a sports fan. As a child he became loyal to the Chicago Cubs, and his loyalty to that team continued until his last day. He would tell you that one of the greatest moments of his life was when he threw out the first pitch during a Cubs vs. Reds game at the age of 85—and that his pitch went right over home plate.

He was a war hero. After graduating from the University of Chicago and before attending Northwestern University School of Law, Justice Stevens served as a naval intelligence officer during World War II. He was awarded the Bronze Star during his service for code-breaking in the Pacific theater.

Perhaps having successfully broken Japanese code, law school came easily to him. Apparently so, since he graduated from Northwestern with the highest GPA in the history of the law school. After leaving law school, he entered private practice and quickly became a noted antitrust scholar and practitioner, teaching antitrust law at both Northwestern and the University of Chicago schools of law and serving as special counsel to the House of Representatives and the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Justice Stevens was a card player. More than a card player, he was a Silver Life Master of bridge, a title of rare accomplishment, particularly for one who was available for tournament play only a few days of the year. Edgar Allan Poe said of whist, a precursor to bridge, that proficiency at the game “implies capacity for success in all the more important undertakings where mind struggles with mind.”  

Certainly Justice Stevens' sagacity at bridge, a game he learned in his youth and continued to play, could be regarded as a precursor of his skill in the “mind v. mind” struggle that is the study of law.  

Justice Stevens' memory and work productivity were formidable, and he was a prolific writer. Even before he began his judicial career as a member of the Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, he had published at least seven law review articles on antitrust law. As a member of the court, he wrote almost 1,800 opinions. And in the first year of his retirement from the court, he wrote a great book called “Five Chiefs,” through which he captured his memoirs on the workings of the court through his personal experiences with five of its chief justices—Fred Vinson, Earl Warren, Warren Burger, William Rehnquist and John Roberts. It is a great read, and I commend it to you all. He went on to write two other books in his retirement—”Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution” and “The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years.”

Justice Stevens was a patriot and a guardian of liberty. Having served this country in war, he possessed a special regard for what this nation stands for. In Texas v. Johnson, he famously dissented from the court's striking of a Texas statute barring desecration of the flag, saying: 

A country's flag is a symbol of more than “nationhood and national unity.” [The American flag] is more than a proud symbol of the courage, the determination, and the gifts of nature that transformed 13 fledgling Colonies into a world power. It is a symbol of freedom, of equal opportunity, of religious tolerance, and of goodwill.  

Writing just as powerfully for liberty, but from the other side of the First Amendment coin, he wrote in Wallace v. Jaffree, a case striking down a required minute of silence in schools:  

Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom of mind, so also the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed of the majority. … [T]he individual freedom of conscience protected by the First Amendment embraces the right to select any religious faith or none at all.”

Justice Stevens was resolute and brave, going without fear or restraint where facts and law led, with no ambition to tilt the scales to suit his ends or to incline future decisions to his pleasure or preferences. 

This resoluteness was first put on critical display in 1969, when he served as a counsel to a commission convened to investigate allegations of corruption against members of the Illinois Supreme Court. His vigorous pursuit of truth in that investigation led to the resignation of two justices and led President Richard Nixon to appoint him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 1970.  

Justice Stevens has proved a conundrum for constitutional scholars who have debated whether he should be characterized as a liberal or a conservative and who have sought, unsuccessfully, to identify lines of ideology that might allow the successful prediction of how he might decide a particular case or type of case.  

True to his days in naval Intelligence, however, Justice Stevens approached each case as an analyst, seeking to review and understand the facts and law of each case and to receive the views of his colleagues before coming to rest on a decision. This analytical, case by case approach has made it difficult to successfully characterize Justice Stevens.

It may be that Justice Stevens will face history as an enigma and defy any characterization. I believe, though, that his record of dedicated and faithful service to the rule of law rather than to any particular ideology will force us to create a new category. Not liberal, not conservative, but simply impartial.

Teresa Wynn Roseborough is executive vice president-general counsel and corporate secretary at The Home Depot. Her remarks were adapted from her introduction of Justice Stevens at the Eleventh American Constitution Society Convention in Washington.

Stevens: A Model of Humanity, Humility and Rationality

Justice John Paul Stevens was a model of humanity, humility and rationality. These qualities radiate through his opinions and characterized the warm and wonderful relationship enjoyed by those of us fortunate enough to have clerked for this great man.

Justice Stevens was unfailingly courteous with everyone—advocates, colleagues and clerks. He always insisted on hearing his clerks' opinions on issues, even when he understood the law far, far better than a clerk ever could. While demonstrating great respect for clerks' views, he followed the practice, unusual for a justice, of writing his own first draft of opinions. He wanted to work through the facts himself to make sure he reached the right legal conclusion. The circumstances of each case demanded careful scrutiny.

That respect for advocates and concern for the particularities of each case extended across the Supreme Court's docket. Certain litigants, often prisoners, submitted multiple petitions seeking the court's intervention. When some of his colleagues sought to erect procedural barriers to deter these frequent filers, Justice Stevens protested. Everyone, he believed, should have the opportunity to be heard.

Those personal qualities, treasured by his clerks, powerfully informed his jurisprudence.  He combined a personal humility with a deep sense of principle. Justice Stevens' jurisprudence was rooted in a humanism that honored individual dignity and a patriotism that understood the United States as a vibrant, unified republic committed to fundamental ideals of freedom and justice. It is a vision that is under much stress on the current Supreme Court.

In cases testing the limits of the war on terror, Justice Stevens wrote important opinions requiring the U.S. government to provide fair procedures, even for those accused of plotting to attack the nation. His experience serving in the Navy during World War II left him with a deep appreciation of the ideals of justice and dignity as defining features of the American tradition. No institution and no person was above the law. His opposition to unbridled exercises of executive power was nonpartisan. He wrote majority opinions limiting the reach of President George W. Bush's military tribunals and denying immunity from suit to President Bill Clinton.

When his colleagues sought to restrict the scope of federal authority, citing the importance of the dignity and autonomy of the states, Justice Stevens affirmed a strong vision of a national government, a government that ruled in the name of all of the people, that fought wars for all of the people and that protected the dignity of all of people.

Some of Justice Stevens' most important opinions came in arcane cases dealing with statutes and administrative regulations. When interpreting congressional enactments, he always sought to honor the purpose underlying the law. For him, a statute was not mere words on a page but the reflection of a rational process whose goals and reasons must be honored by courts. He and his longtime friendly adversary Justice Antonin Scalia often sparred about the possibility of looking beyond the language of the statute to find the broader rationale. In a characteristic opinion in 1991, Stevens chided his colleagues for putting on “thick grammarian's spectacles” to scrutinize the text of legislation while ignoring the evidence of congressional purpose.

Justice Stevens' respect for reason and expertise underlay his most widely cited opinion in Chevron v. National Resources Defense Council in 1984. That case established the principle of Chevron deference, the practice of deferring to the views of administrative agencies tasked by Congress with implementing a statute. It is telling that this humble man authored the court's most important statement of deference.

Justice Stevens also had a deep commitment to impartial governance. He believed the Constitution prohibited partisanship in all public spheres, from employment to legislative districting.

All of these views are under attack in the current Supreme Court. A five-Justice majority has shown great deference for presidential assertions of national security and skepticism about the reach of federal authority. A majority often emphasizes statutory text and downplays congressional purpose. Chevron deference has come under criticism. The Supreme Court's recent rejection of challenges to partisan gerrymandering reflects its acquiescence in partisanship and its lack of faith in the ability of judges to use their reason and experience to determine manageable standards.

Justice Stevens' enduring legacy will consist in part in highlighting an alternative path, an approach to judging and to the law more attuned to dignity, rationality, impartiality and government accountability. He will be remembered for his many stirring dissents, including in Bush v. Gore, which handed the 2000 election to Bush. To this Republican justice, appointed by President Gerald Ford, the ruling constituted one of the court's worst decisions.

After his retirement, Justice Stevens continued dissenting. He wrote a book calling for six constitutional amendments to overturn doctrines that he believed reflected serious errors by the court. The book displayed both Justice Stevens' passionate concern for getting the law right and his inveterate optimism in the persuasive force of reasoned argument.

That optimism is one of my enduring memories of clerking for Justice Stevens. Even when consistently outvoted on a range of important issues, Justice Stevens never lost faith in his colleagues or in the institution of the Supreme Court. His was an optimism born of faith in the ability of nations and individuals to overcome great challenges, a belief that over time principles of reason and fairness would prevail.

Justice Stevens' death marks the passing of an extraordinarily powerful combination of deep humility and broad faith in the ability, and duty, of judges and nations to realize humane values through rational deliberation. It also marks the passing of a brilliant teacher, an inspiring mentor and a great friend.

Robert A. Schapiro is the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Law at Emory University. He served as a clerk for Stevens in the 1991-1992 term of the Supreme Court.