John Paul Stevens (20 April 1920 - ) is an Associate Justice on the United States Supreme Court, nominated in 1975 by Gerald Ford. He is both the Court's eldest member and its longest-serving justice, and as the Court's senior member he took on the administrative duties normally held by the Chief Justice after William Rehnquist's death in 2005.
Life and times
John Paul Stevens was born in Chicago way back in 1920. He was the youngest of four sons, his father a wealthy hotel owner. His childhood home was quite close to the University of Chicago, and he followed his father's footsteps and went to school there. He majored in English, and was a distinguished scholar: he edited the school's newspaper, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1941 with the school's highest honors.
The year after his graduation, he married Elizabeth Jane Sheeren, and the two eventually had four children. (They divorced in 1979, and the following year he married Maryan Mulholland.) He joined the Navy, and served during the latter years of World War II as an officer assigned to a code-breaking team. After the war, he was awarded the Bronze Star, and on the advice of his older brother, an attorney, studied law at Northwestern University. Again, he was one of the school's top scholars: he became editor-in-chief of the law review and graduated at the top of his class in 1947 - with the highest grades in the school's history.
As befitting his scholarly achievements, John Paul Stevens worked as a clerk after graduation for Supreme Court Justice Wiley Rutledge. After that, he returned to Chicago and began his career in antitrust law. He worked for a prominent law firm for a few years before starting his own firm in 1951. At the same time, he taught law at both Northwestern and the University of Chicago. His reputation began to grow in the government, in stints working with committees on antitrust law of the House and then the U.S. Attorney General. In 1970, he was named by Richard Nixon to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Stevens' career was on the up-and-up at this point; he had already developed a reputation both for legal skill and for integrity, and his recognition continued to grow during his service on the Court of Appeals. He was a registered Republican, but he was not active in politics and was seen as consumately fair on the bench. When Associate Justice William O. Douglas retired from the Supreme Court in 1975, Stevens was one of eleven candidates considered (another being the infamously right wing future nominee Robert Bork). Stevens was a political moderate, an astute jurist, and above all a scrupulously fair judge, and thus was an obvious choice for Gerald Ford in the post-Watergate era of distrust for government. He was confirmed on 17 December, 1975 by a vote of 98-0.
On the court
John Paul Stevens was considered a moderate at the time of his confirmation, but over the years he's moved leftward to a certain extent, being seen as a member of the Court's liberal bloc. He's not the only Republican nominee on the Court to frustrate his party in this way, though the Court's more conservative-leaning justices have no problem anchoring the body as a whole. In fact, his apparent move leftward may be a reflection of the Rehnquist Court's gradual rightward shift.
Stevens is known as somewhat idiosyncratic in his rulings, not being particularly identified with a school of constitutional reasoning and being less predictable than many other justices. He has maintained his lifelong habit of making careful decisions, though; one reason that his decisions tend to defy prediction is the great care he takes in considering the individual facts underlying any case rather than applying more simplistic doctrines in coming to a decision. His habit of considering even the smallest details surrounding a case sets him apart from those who prefer a doctrinaire approach to constitutional jurisprudence, but it goes along well with his philosophy of restraint, deferring to other bodies when possible and generally leaving the scope of Court precedent fairly narrow.
John Paul Stevens' academic credentials reflect a carefully focused intellectualism that he has maintained in his service on the Supreme Court. Reportedly, he generally writes the first draft of his opinions himself (a task often delegated to clerks.) Furthermore, not only has he often been assigned majority opinions as the Court's senior member, but he almost always writes dissents when he disagrees with the majority and has written more concurrences than most other justices.
Stevens has voted to permit capital punishment, but he leans more liberal in supporting the right to abortion and gay rights. He has opposed the strict scrutiny standard normally applied to laws applying to suspect classes (often racial minorities) and instead supported a weaker rational basis test for the constitutionality of such laws. During his early years, he sharply criticized affirmative action, but his position has likely softened as he voted with the majority to permit the University of Michigan Law School to take race into consideration in admissions in the 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger.
Stevens' views on freedom of speech have changed notably over the years. One of his early statements upheld a zoning law in Detroit affecting the establishment of pornographic theaters. He specifically argued that the first amendment protection of free speech did not apply as strongly to erotic speech as to "untrammeled political debate". Similarly, in 1989 he voted to uphold a ban on flag burning (making reference to patriotism and his own naval service during World War II, a common theme in his decisions.) Lately, he has become more troubled by the thought of encroachments on free speech, becoming essentially libertarian in his views on its restriction, for instance, agreeing with the majority that virtual child pornography was constitutionally protected in Ashcroft v. ACLU (2004).
Bowties
He often wears bowties in photos. See? Even the way he dresses is idiosyncratic.
Sources
http://www.supremecourthistory.org/myweb/justice/stevens.htm - The Supreme Court Historical Society's bio
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/about/biographiescurrent.pdf - SCOTUS Official Bio
http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/justices/stevens.html - FindLaw page on Stevens
http://www.oyez.org/oyez/resource/legal_entity/101/ - Oyez page on Stevens
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