The Passion of John Paul Stevens

Abstract

At a still-energetic age ninety, the newly retired Justice John Paul Stevens became a public intellectual, more celebrated after leaving the bench in 2010 than he was during nearly 35 years on the U.S. Supreme Court. Freed from the constraints of serving on a collegial court, he spoke and wrote his mind on the Second Amendment, the death penalty, the inadequacies of "originalism," and other topics of public concern. Two months before his death in July 2019 at ninety-nine, he published this third book, the memoir reviewed in this essay: The Making of a Justice: Reflections on My First 94 Years. We realize only now, after his death, how valuable John Paul Stevens was in life. He was moved by the very things now missing from our public life: the power of facts, of logic, and of approaching each problem with an open mind, ready to be persuaded or, of his luck was running, to persuade.

Keywords: John Paul Stevens, Supreme Court, Second Amendment, death penalty, originalism

JEL Classification: K39, K40