Quotes by Harry A. Blackmun - Page 1 | QuoteForever

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The death penalty experiment has failed.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Death Penalty
Human Rights
Penalties
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We're all eccentrics. We're nine prima donnas.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Nine
Prima Donnas
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I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Machinery
Shall
Tinker
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From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Death Penalty
Human Rights
Tinkering
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Who is to say that 5 men 10 years ago were right whereas 5 men looking the other direction today are wrong.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Men
Alaska
Years
Years Ago
Direction
Whereas
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The right to privacy... is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Abortion Laws
Decision
Pregnancy
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A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that god prefers some
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Government
Belief
Separation Of Church And State
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If [a United States Supreme Court Justice is] in the doghouse with the Chief [Justice], he gets the crud. He gets the tax cases.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Court
Justice
United States
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Disapproval of homosexuality cannot justify invading the houses, hearts and minds of citizens who choose to live their lives differently.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Citizens
Disapproval
Heart
Homosexuality
House
Invading
Justify
Mind
Hearts
Houses
Minds
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The states are not free, under the guise of protecting maternal health or potential life, to intimidate women into continuing pregnancies.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Abortion Laws
Continuing
Feminist
Guise
Maternal Health
Pregnancy
Maternal
Intimidate
Pregnancies
Protecting
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What the Court really has refused to recognize is the fundamental interest all individuals have in controlling the nature of their intimate associations.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Association
Court
Fundamentals
Individual
Intimate
Associations
Controlling
Fundamental
Individuals
Recognize
Refused
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In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of race. There is no other way. And in order to treat some persons equally, we must treat them differently.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Equality
Order
Persons
Race
Racism
Way
Account
Get
Beyond
Them
Take
First
Differently
Equally
Must
Other
Some
Treat
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The flaw in the statute is that in all its applications, it operates on a fundamentally mistaken premise that high solicitation costs are an accurate measure of fraud.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Accurate
Cost
Flaws
Fraud
Mistaken
Applications
Flaw
Fundamentally
Measure
Premise
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By placing discretion in the hands of an official to grant or deny a license, such a statute creates a threat of censorship that by its very existence chills free speech.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Censorship
Deny
Discretion
Ethos
Free Speech
Hands
License
Speech
Chills
Creates
Grant
Official
Placing
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The right of an individual to conduct intimate relationships in the intimacy of his or her own home seems to me to be the heart of the Constitutions protection of privacy.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Home
Heart
Intimate Relationships
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The right of an individual to conduct intimate relationships in the intimacy of his or her own home seems to me to be the heart of the Constitution's protection of privacy.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Intimacy
Privacy
Protection
Relationships
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If there is any truth to the old proverb that "one who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client," the Court now bestows a constitutional right on one to make a fool of himself.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Clients
Fool
Lawyer
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This Court repeatedly has recognized that the whole subject of the domestic relations of husband and wife belongs to the laws of the States and not to the laws of the United States.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Husband
Law
Wife
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From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. ... I fell morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Motivational
Death Penalty
Penalties
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I hope you will be yourself, human, even a little sentimental, possessed of a sense of humor and a sense of humility. . . . There are arrogant people in this world and, what is worse, arrogant judges.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Being Yourself
Humility
People
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Over our history there are always those who want to take this wall of separation and remove a brick here or there or damage it more than that. I think one has to be vigilant and constantly on the alert.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Atheism
Thinking
Wall
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It is precisely because the issue raised by this case touches the heart of what makes individuals what they are that we should be especially sensitive to the rights of those whose choices upset the majority.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Choices
Majority
Raised
Sensitive
Upset
Case
Individuals
Issue
Precisely
Whose
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Abortion raises moral and spiritual questions over which honorable persons can disagree sincerely and profoundly. But those disagreements did not then and do not now relieve us of our duty to apply the Constitution faithfully.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Abortion
Moral
Spiritual
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I cannot see any of these death penalty cases where there hasn't been a violation on the ground of either poverty or race. If we can ever get that straightened out, it will help. But, of course, the real answer to it is to do away with the death penalty.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Answers
Race
Real
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The mandated description of fetal characteristics at two-week intervals, no matter how objective, is plainly overinclusive. [It is] not medical information that is always relevant to the woman's decision, and it may serve to confuse and punish her and to heighten her anxiety.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Anxiety
Decision
Two
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Of one thing, however, I am certain. Just as an execution without adequate safeguards is unacceptable, so too is an execution when the condemned prisoner can prove that he is innocent. The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Adequate
Execution
Simple
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We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Men
Difficult Questions
Philosophy
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I am more optimistic though, that this court will eventually conclude that the effort to eliminate arbitrariness while preserving fairness in the infliction of [death] is so plainly doomed to failure that is - and the death penalty - must be abandoned altogether. I may not live to see that day, but I have faith that eventually it will arrive.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Optimistic
Effort
Have Faith
May
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The mixing of government and religion can be a threat to free government, even if no one is forced to participate.... When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion, it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Religion
Government
Atheism
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The Free Exercise Clause at the very least was designed to guarantee freedom of conscience by prohibiting any degree of compulsion in matters of belief. It was offended by a burden on one's religion. The Establishment Clause can be understood as designed in part to ensure that the advancement of religion comes only from the voluntary efforts of its proponents and not from support by the state. Religious groups are to prosper or perish on the intrinsic merit and attraction of their beliefs and practices.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Exercise
Practice
Religious
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From this day forward, I no longer shall tinker with the machinery of death. For more than 20 years I have endeavored - indeed, I have struggled - along with a majority of this Court, to develop procedural and substantive rules that would lend more than the mere appearance of fairness to the death penalty endeavor. Rather than continue to coddle the Court's delusion that the desired level of fairness has been achieved and the need for regulation eviscerated, I feel morally and intellectually obligated to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.
Harry A. Blackmun / Former Associate Justice Of The Supreme Court Of The United States
Majority
Needs
Years
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