(TheLibertyRevolution.com)- The ex-Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer had warned the Court against writing opinions “too rigidly,” saying that they can “bite you in the back,” according to The Hill. “You start writing too rigidly and you will see, the world will come around and bite you in the back,” Breyer told Chris Wallace during an interview.
“Life is complex, life changes,” he said. “And we want to maintain insofar as we can—everybody does—certain key moral political values: democracy, human rights, equality, rule of law, etc. To try to do that in an ever-changing world.”
Breyer was a Clinton-appointed Justice who served 28 years on the Court before retiring this past summer. He described his final term on the bench as “very frustrating,” as a result of being the minority on multiple cases. He lamented the decision when discussing the recent ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) which overturned Roe v. Wade. He said that he did “everything I could to try to persuade people.”
“Was I happy about it? Not for an instant,” he said of the outcome. “But there we are and now we go on. We try to work together.”
But Breyer also condemned the draft leak that occurred in May ahead of the Court’s ruling. “It was very damaging because that kind of thing just doesn’t happen. It just doesn’t happen,” he said. The majority of the justices and Chief Justice Roberts led an investigation into the incident shortly after.
Showing his commitment and loyalty to the bench, Breyer also refused to criticize Clarence Thomas and his wife when Wallace asked for his opinion on Ginni Thomas reaching out to then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about her support of overturning the 2020 election. Breyer declined to offer an opinion, simply saying, “I’m not going to criticize Ginni Thomas, whom I like. I’m not going to criticize Clarence, whom I like.”
The new Biden appointee, Kentaji Brown Jackson, that will replace Breyer will take the bench in about a week. She will reportedly take up cases involving religious liberty, immigration, voting rights and affirmative action.
