Stephen Breyer
Stephen Gerald Breyer (born August 15, 1938) has been a US Supreme Court Associate Justice since 1994.
Breyer was born in San Francisco, California. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children Chloe, Nell, and Michael. He received an A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College, University of Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 Term, as a Special Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965-1967, as an Assistant Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, as Special Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974-1975, and as Chief Counsel of the committee, 1979-1980.
He was an Assistant Professor, Professor of Law, and Lecturer at Harvard Law School, 1967-1994, a Professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government, 1977-1980, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the University of Rome. At Harvard, Breyer was known as a leading expert on administrative law.
From 1980-1990, he served as a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990-1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1990-1994, and of the United States Sentencing Commission, 1985-1989. On the sentencing commission, Breyer played a key role in reforming federal criminal sentencing procedures, producing the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which were formulated to increase uniformity in sentences for criminal cases.
President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994.
On the bench, Breyer generally takes a pragmatic approach to constitutional issues, interested more in making producing coherence and continuity in the law than in following doctrinal, historical, or textual strictures. Breyer has compiled a generally moderate record on the Court. He is a strong defender of abortion rights and has urged that the Supreme Court cite international law in making its rulings. However, Breyer is also deferential to the interests of law enforcement and urges that the Court be deferential to legislative judgments in its First Amendment rulings.
External links
- Supreme court official bio (PDF)
- LookSmart - Stephen Breyer directory category
- Yahoo - Stephen Breyer directory category
| Preceded by: Harry Blackmun |
Associate Justice | Succeeded by: |