Breyer, Stephen

Description

Autograph ID: 6320
Condition: Very good
Description: “(b. 1938) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States appointed by President Clinton in 1994, known for his pragmatic approach to constitutional law. He was a clerk to Justice Goldberg in the 1964 term, a special assistant to the Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust 1965-67, and an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Task Force in 1973. Breyer was a special counsel to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary 1974-75 and served as Committee chief counsel 1979-80. Breyer taught at Harvard Law 1967-94, also a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government 1977-80. He was a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit 1980-94, that Court’s Chief Judge 1990-94. Breyer has consistently voted in favor of abortion rights and has defended the Court’s use of foreign and international law as persuasive (but not binding) authority in its decisions. He is also recognized as deferential to the interests of law enforcement and to legislative judgments in the Court’s First Amendment rulings. Breyer has also demonstrated a consistent pattern of deference to Congress. His pragmatism was considered the intellectual counterweight to Justice Scalia’s textualist philosophy. In describing his interpretive philosophy, Breyer has sometimes noted his use of history, tradition, precedent, the purpose of a statute, and the consequences of competing interpretations.

SP, color 10 x 8 borderless matte finish official portrait of Justice Breyer seated, wearing his judicial robes, signed in silver ink at lower left in his usual hurried fashion”
Type: Photograph