Judges are appointed often through the political process.

Independence doesn't mean you decide the way you want.

To threaten the institution is to threaten fair administration of justice and protection of liberty.

But once the person is selected, at that point that person is independent.

I thought that that was an effort to inject a popular element, a democratic element into the selection of a person who, once he is selected and confirmed, is beyond electoral control.

And the problem is once you get into this campaign business and begin to have a lot of money, then the person on the bench begins to think - what's going to happen if I decide the case this way or that way?

Judges are appointed often through the political process.

It doesn't help to fight crime to put people in prison who are innocent.

Independence means you decide according to the law and the facts.

I mean those people who are interested in good government will certainly contribute in order to make certain there's some counter-balance to those whose interests in good government is less.

I think it shows that if you have one group of people doing it, you'll get another group of people doing it.

And in that confirmation process, I sat for 17 hours in front of a senate judiciary committee.

Well, just that there would be somebody in the office and the voters - it was more or less an understanding in the entire community, as long as that person was doing a good job on the merits, nobody was going to run against him.

We can speak about the institution, but ultimately the bar is the group that both is in touch with the public on the one hand and understands the judicial institution on the other.

At least there's a political input, but when you put on the robe, at that point the politics is over.

Ultimately, the question of campaign contributions will be decided by the public.

You will read in the newspaper more often about federal courts, but the law that affects people, the trials that affect human beings are by and large in the state courts.

Nobody wants a judge to be subject to the political whim of the moment.

Every citizen has to figure out what kind of government he or she wants.

There are loads of countries that have nice written constitutions like ours. But there aren't loads of countries where they're followed.

It's important to every American that the law protect his or her basic liberty.

You can have many different selection systems, but the bottom line has to be a system that, once the judge takes office that judge will feel that he or she is to decide the case without reference to the popular thing or the popular will of the moment.

People have to be educated and they have to stick to it. If people lose that respect, an awful lot is lost.

We are selected, but I grew up in California and in San Francisco and there was a system of electing judges.

Ideological warriors whether from the Left or the Right are bad news for the bench. They tend to make law, not interpret law. And that's not what any of us should want from our judges.

Absent scandal, a federal judge can serve for decades on the bench, underscoring the importance of appointing judges who have a proper understanding of their constitutional role.

Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.

The Middle East is literally going up in flames, as is California, and Katrina's problems haven't been solved, and Congress' response is to criticize Federal judges.

The world at large does not judge us by who we are and what we know; it judges us by what we have.

Unfortunately, what many people forget is that judges are just lawyers in robes.

Now, I - for several years while I was researching this book, I felt quite obsessed by thoughts about sentencing, punishment, how judges arrive at their decisions.

Marriage has been defined by every legislature that has ever sat in the United States from every State, now 50 States, the same way, but now we have unelected judges altering and changing that fundamental institution.

It is necessary to keep one's compass in one's eyes and not in the hand, for the hands execute, but the eye judges.

If we believe in our current penal process, then the penalties imposed by judges and juries should be the only sanctions for one's crime, not the invisible sanctions of the legislature.

I love judges, and I love courts. They are my ideals, that typify on earth what we shall meet hereafter in heaven under a just God.

The Violence Against Women Act is so important. It provides money to train the cop on the beat, to train the judges that this is a new day, that we won't tolerate this violence and to know how to deal with it.

The politics of judges is getting to be red hot.

I also read modern novels - I have just had to read 60 as I am one of the judges for the Orange Fiction Prize.

A key to the mentality of the left is that it judges itself by its best intentions, and judges its opponents - America chief among them - by their worst deeds.

Half of figure skating is opinion, convincing judges.

Our nation is being led astray by ungodly judges, mayors and governors, who are given to change, defying the Constitution and substituting their own wicked agendas.

Now that judges embrace forcibly starving someone to death, Congress should use its appropriation power to starve the judicial budget.

I wouldn't approach the issue of judging in the way the president does. Judges can't rely on what's in their heart. They don't determine the law. Congress makes the law. The job of a judge is to apply the law.

We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old - and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges.

Judges were not the biggest issue for most voters in Georgia in 2002.

My job, I think, is the hardest job out of all the judges because I am the only one that is a performer.

But one way or another, judges perform a very vital function in our society. They have a risky job and they are entitled to security.

God's truth judges created things out of love, and Satan's truth judges them out of envy and hatred.

Judges are appointed often through the political process.