29 Facts About Justice John Paul Stevens

1. Justice John Paul Stevens attended Game 4 of the 2016 World Series, wearing a red bowtie with a Chicago Cubs jacket.

2. Justice John Paul Stevens was at Wrigley Field for the 1932 World Series game at which Babe Ruth hit his "called shot" home run.

3. Justice John Paul Stevens is brought out with other Supreme Court Justices during the case, Earth v Zoidberg.

4. Justice John Paul Stevens was portrayed by David Grant Wright in two episodes of Boston Legal in which Alan Shore and Denny Crane appear before the Supreme Court.

5. Justice John Paul Stevens was portrayed by the actor William Schallert in the film Recount.

6. Justice John Paul Stevens is a Protestant, and upon his retirement the Supreme Court had no Protestant members for the first time in its history.

7. In 2011, Justice John Paul Stevens published a memoir entitled Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir, which detailed his legal career during the tenure of five of the Supreme Court's Chief Justices.

8. Justice John Paul Stevens continued, "The endorsement of that position by the majority of this Court can only lend credence to the most cynical appraisal of the work of judges throughout the land.

9. Justice John Paul Stevens had a generally libertarian voting record on the Fourth Amendment, which deals with search and seizure.

10. Justice John Paul Stevens affirmed that the Establishment Clause is binding on the States via the Fourteenth Amendment, and that: "Just as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom of mind, so the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed of the majority.

11. Justice John Paul Stevens generally supported students' right to free speech in public schools.

12. Justice John Paul Stevens's views on obscenity under the First Amendment changed over the years.

13. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a lengthy dissenting opinion in Citizens United v FEC, arguing the majority should not make a decision so broad that it would overturn precedents set in three previous Supreme Court cases.

14. Justice John Paul Stevens was not an originalist nor a pragmatist (such as Judge Richard Posner), nor does he pronounce himself a cautious liberal (such as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg).

15. Early in his tenure on the Supreme Court, Justice John Paul Stevens had a relatively moderate voting record.

16. In 2018, Justice John Paul Stevens told a Boca Raton crowd that Brett Kavanaugh's performance during recent Senate hearings should disqualify him from the US Supreme Court bench, citing the potential for political bias should he serve on the Supreme Court.

17. In July 2015, Justice John Paul Stevens became the longest-lived retired justice, surpassing Stanley Forman Reed who died at age 95 years and 93 days.

18. Justice John Paul Stevens retired as the third-longest-serving justice in the history of the Supreme Court with 34 years and six months of service and just 3 days short of tying the tenure of the second-longest serving justice in history.

19. On January 20, 2009, Justice John Paul Stevens administered the oath of office to Vice President Joe Biden at Biden's request.

20. Justice John Paul Stevens was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2008.

21. Justice John Paul Stevens's growing expertise in antitrust law led to an invitation to teach the "Competition and Monopoly" course at the University of Chicago Law School, and from 1953 to 1955, he was a member of the Attorney General's National Committee to Study Antitrust Laws.

22. Justice John Paul Stevens determined that he would not stay long at the Poppenhusen firm after he was docked a day's pay for taking the day off to travel to Springfield to swear his oath of admission.

23. Justice John Paul Stevens was a brilliant student, earning the highest GPA in the history of the law school.

24. Justice John Paul Stevens was awarded a Bronze Star for his service in the codebreaking team whose work led to the downing of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's plane in 1943.

25. Justice John Paul Stevens enlisted on December 6, 1941, one day before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and served as an intelligence officer in the Pacific Theater from 1942 to 1945.

26. Justice John Paul Stevens began work on his master's degree in English at the university in 1941, but soon decided to join the United States Navy.

27. Justice John Paul Stevens was born on April 20, 1920, in Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois, to a wealthy family.

28. Justice John Paul Stevens retired during the administration of President Barack Obama and was succeeded by Justice Elena Kagan.

29. Justice John Paul Stevens became the senior Associate Justice after the retirement of Harry Blackmun in 1994.