CBA Record

Justice Stevens Discusses His Life and Career at HaroldWashington Library

By William A. Zolla Editorial Board Member

I n June, the CBA hosted a special pro- gram featuring retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who travelled to Chicago to sit for an intimate conversa- tion about his extraordinary life and career, his judicial legacy, and the most significant decisions issued by the Supreme Court in recent years. Judge Ann C. Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit moderated the program, which was held at the Harold Washington Library before a large audience that included state and federal judges, several of Justice Stevens’s former law clerks, and members of his family. Justice Stevens, who celebrated his 95th birthday in April, served on the Supreme Court from December of 1975, until his retirement in 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the third longest-serving Supreme Court Justice in the nation’s his- tory and had authored more than 1400 opinions, nearly half of which were dis- sents. Asked by Judge Williams about his propensity for writing dissenting opinions, Justice Stevens claimed that he felt obli- gated to the public to explain the reasons for his disagreement with the Court’s majority. Certainly in his final years on the Court, Justice Stevens received widespread national attention for his strong dissents in several highly controversial cases, including Bush v. Gore ; District of Columbia v. Heller , in which the Court ruled that the Second

SeventhCircuit Court of Appeals Judge AnnC.Williams interviewed Justice Stevens andmoderated the program, which was held at the Harold Washington Library. Photo by Bill Richert.

Amendment protects an individual‘s right to own guns; and Citizens United v. FEC, which struck down restrictions on cam- paign spending by corporations. Over the course of the program, Judge Williams engaged with Justice Stevens in a wide-ranging discussion about the seminal moments in his life, while also exploring how his personal history influenced his work and philosophy as a Supreme Court justice. Born in 1920 into a prominent Chi- cago family, Justice Stevens grew up in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood, where he attended the University of Chicago Lab School. In 1927, Justice Stevens’s father built the Stevens Hotel, now the Hilton Chicago, which at the time was the largest hotel in the world. Through his father’s hotel, Justice Stevens met numerous celebrities of the era, including Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. He also learned difficult, lasting, lessons when his family lost much of its wealth during the Great Depression. Among other childhood

memories, Justice Stevens vividly recalls witnessing Franklin D. Roosevelt accepting the nomination for president at the 1932 Democratic National Convention at the Chicago Stadium, and seeing Babe Ruth hit his famous “called shot” home run at Wrigley Field during the 1932 World Series. Justice Stevens earned his undergraduate degree in English from the University of Chicago in 1941, and then enlisted in the Navy, where he served as an intelligence officer duringWorldWar II. Following the war, Justice Stevens attended law school at Northwestern, where he graduated magna cum laude in 1947 with the highest grade point average ever recorded. After earning a clerkship with Supreme Court Justice Wiley Rutledge, Justice Stevens returned to Illinois, where he developed a highly successful private legal practice during the 1950s and 60s.

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10 JULY/AUGUST 2015

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