Stephen Breyer Biography
Stephen Gerald Breyer (Stephen Gerald Breyer) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed by President Bill Clinton to the Supreme Court in 1994. Breyer is generally associated with its more liberal side. Before he became a lecturer, he was a clerk with Supreme Court Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg in 1964. He also served briefly as a fact-checker for the Warren Commission.
As A Lecturer
He rose to fame as a law professor and lecturer at Harvard Law School, starting in 1967. His career as the lecturer at the Harvard university lasted up to 1994. He also served as a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government from 1977 to 1980. He is a specialist in administrative law. He has also written a number of influential textbooks that remain in use today.
Among his books include; Breaking the Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation and Regulation and Its Reform. He has also written “The Uneasy Case for Copyright”. Breyer was a visiting professor at the College of Law in Sydney, Australia, the University of Rome, and the Tulane University Law School.
Before His Nomination
Before being nominated to the supreme court, he held various other positions. These positions include; special assistant to the United States Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust and assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973. He also served on the First Circuit Court of Appeals from 1980 to 1994.
Breyer made his first attempt to systematically lay out his views on legal theory in his 2005 book Active Liberty. He argued that the judiciary should seek to resolve issues in a manner that encourages popular participation in governmental decisions. He was a special counsel to the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary from 1974 to 1975.
As A Court Of Appeal Judge
Breyer also served as chief counsel of the committee from 1979 to 1980. Together with Senator Edward M. Kennedy, they passed the Airline Deregulation Act that closed the Civil Aeronautics Board. From 1980 to 1994, He served as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1980 to 1994.
Between 1990 and 1994 he was the court of Appeal Chief Judge. President Jimmy Carter nominated him on 13th November 1980, to the First Circuit, to a new seat established by 92 Stat. 1629. The United States Senate confirmed him on 9th December 1980 unanimously. He received his commission on December 10, 1980.
He served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States between 1990 and 1994. During the period between 1985 and 1989, he served in the United States Sentencing Commission. On the sentencing commission, Breyer played a key role in reforming federal criminal sentencing procedures. He formulated Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which increased uniformity in sentencing.
As A Supreme Court Judge
President Bill Clinton considered him for the seat vacated by Byron White. Unfortunately, the seat went to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. However, he was appointed shortly thereafter following the retirement of Harry Blackmun in 1994. Clinton nominated Breyer as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on 17th May 1994.
He was unanimously confirmed by the Senate on 29th July 1994. On 3rd August, he received his commission. He was the second-longest-serving junior justice in the history of the Court. His record came close to surpassing the record set by Justice Joseph Story of 4,228 days (from February 3, 1812, to September 1, 1823). Breyer fell 29 days short of tying this record.
Stephen Breyer Age
Stephen Breyer was born in San Francisco, California, United States of America. He was born on 15th August 1938. He is 80 years old as of 2018.
Stephen Breyer Wife
Stephen Breyer got married to his wife Joanna Hare in 1967. Joanna is a psychologist. She is the daughter of British Conservative Party leader John Hare. The two met during his early years as an assistant professor. They have three children.
Stephen Breyer Retirement
After the resignation of Supreme court Judge, Anthony Kennedy in July 2018, there is a lot of speculations on who could go next. Supreme court Judges in the United States serve for life. However, reports indicate that President Donald Trump is hell bent on replacing at least four Judges during his first term.
Trump reportedly has suggested he hopes to remake nearly half of the US’s highest court in his image by making four separate appointments during his first term and so far, that’d already be half right. Upon taking office, Trump quickly filled the Supreme Court vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia. He appointed Neil Gorsuch, a conservative to fill the position.
The big question that has hitting the minds of Americans is who will be replaced and how. Not even the president can remove a sitting Supreme court judge in office. In the list of the judges who might be going home soon include Stephen Breyer. The list could also be targetting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. Samuel Alito could also be targeted.
She has reportedly returned to work after a recent hospital stint for lung cancer surgery. The 85-year-old’s health has raised speculation that President Donald Trump may get another chance to reshape the court. Trump has now secured two Supreme Court picks in the first half of his first term.
Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush appointed two justices each during their eight years in office. In October, the news website Axios cited an anonymous source detailing private predictions by Trump that Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor would retire during his term. Sonia is also experiencing health issues. So far, Trump has had the chance only to replace judges appointed by Republican presidents, and he is sure to nominate a conservative-leaning judge to replace Kennedy.
Stephen Breyer Health
In the midst of a seemingly ailing SCOTUS bench, lies a conservative Stephen Bayer. He was involved in a serious bike accident while under consideration for the Supreme Court in 1993. He met with President Clinton despite recovering from a punctured lung and several broken ribs. His colleagues are also ailing. Two of his colleagues have been experiencing serious health complications and speculations have been rising about their ability to serve up to 2020.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg has reportedly returned to work after a recent hospital stint for lung cancer surgery. She is also reportedly suffering a rib injury after an accident. The 85-year-old’s health has raised speculation that President Donald Trump may get another chance to reshape the court. Trump has now secured two Supreme Court picks in the first half of his first term.
Her colleague Sonia Sotomayor is also experiencing health issues. In a recent interview, President Trump hinted that she was suffering from Diabetes. Sotomayor had a health scare in January with paramedics treating her for low blood sugar, but she quickly returned to work. Sotomayor says she’s vigilant about her Type 1 diabetes , which she’s had since childhood.
Stephen Breyer Ideology | Stephen Breyer French
Breyer holds a very pragmatic philosophical approach towards law. His approach tends to make the law more sensible. His attack on originalism is powerful and convincing. In 2006, Breyer said that in assessing a law’s constitutionality, while some of his colleagues “emphasize language, a more literal reading of the [Constitution’s] text, history and tradition”, he looks more closely to the “purpose and consequences”.
Breyer has consistently voted in favor of abortion rights. Abortion is one of the most controversial areas of the Supreme Court’s docket. He has also defended the Court’s use of foreign law and international law as persuasive (but not binding) authority in its decisions.
He also holds different opinion to the interests of law enforcement and to legislative judgments in the Court’s First Amendment rulings. voting to overturn congressional legislation at a lower rate than any other Justice since 1994 he has demonstrated a consistent pattern of deference to Congress.
Breyer’s extensive experience in administrative law is accompanied by his staunch defense of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. He rejects the strict interpretation of the Sixth Amendment espoused by Justice Scalia. Scalia believes, that all facts necessary to criminal punishment must be submitted to a jury and proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
In many other areas on the Court, too, Breyer’s pragmatism was considered the intellectual counterweight to Scalia’s textualist philosophy. In describing his interpretive philosophy, Breyer has sometimes noted his use of six interpretive tools. These tools are, text, history, tradition, precedent, the purpose of a statute, and the consequences of competing interpretations.
Breyer argues that these sources can in fact provide greater objectivity in legal interpretation than looking merely at what is often ambiguous statutory text. He argues that considering the impact of legal interpretations is a further way of ensuring consistency with a law’s intended purpose.
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