21 Facts About Stephen Breyer

1. Stephen Breyer delivered an address at the Capital Rotunda marking Yom Hashoah 1996, and spoke stirringly of the historic significance of the *Nuremberg trial half a century earlier and the participation as prosecutor of then Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson.

2. Stephen Breyer is viewed as a liberal centrist member of the Supreme Court.

3. Stephen Breyer began a teaching career at Harvard Law School in the fall of 1967, specializing in administrative and antitrust law.

4. In 1967, Stephen Breyer embarked on dual careers in academia and government.

5. Stephen Breyer was born on August 15, 1938, in San Francisco.

6. Stephen Breyer became part of the special prosecutor's force led by his former law professor, Archibald Cox.

7. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer voted with the majority in the Texas case but on the same day voted against displays of the Ten Commandments in Kentucky.

8. In 2015, Stephen Breyer released a third book, The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities, examining the interplay between US and international law and how the realities of a globalized world need to be considered in US cases.

9. Stephen Breyer notes that President Jackson ignored the Court's ruling in Worcester v Georgia, which led to the Trail of Tears and severely weakened the Court's authority.

10. Stephen Breyer expounded his judicial philosophy in 2005 in Active Liberty: Interpreting Our Democratic Constitution.

11. Stephen Breyer has demonstrated a consistent pattern of deference to Congress, voting to overturn congressional legislation at a lower rate than any other Justice since 1994.

12. Stephen Breyer is recognized to be deferential to the interests of law enforcement and to legislative judgments in the Court's First Amendment rulings.

13. Stephen Breyer has consistently voted in favor of abortion rights, one of the most controversial areas of the Supreme Court's docket.

14. Stephen Breyer was confirmed by the Senate on July 29, 1994, by an 87 to 9 vote, and received his commission on August 3.

15. Stephen Breyer served as Chief Judge from 1990 to 1994.

16. Stephen Breyer was a visiting professor at the College of Law in Sydney, Australia, the University of Rome, and the Tulane University Law School.

17. In 1970, Stephen Breyer wrote "The Uneasy Case for Copyright", one of the most widely cited skeptical examinations of copyright.

18. Stephen Breyer was a lecturer, assistant professor, and law professor at Harvard Law School starting in 1967.

19. Stephen Breyer was a special assistant to the United States Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust from 1965 to 1967 and an assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973.

20. Stephen Breyer served as a law clerk to Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg during the 1964 term, and served briefly as a fact-checker for the Warren Commission.

21. Stephen Breyer held other prominent positions before being nominated for the Supreme Court, including special assistant to the United States Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973, and serving on the First Circuit Court of Appeals from 1980 to 1994.