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Justice Anthony Kennedy · The David Rubenstein Show

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Perhaps the most impactful justice of the Supreme Court over
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: the last fifty years was Justice Anthony Kennedy. He served
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: in the Court for thirty years and wrote some of
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: the court's most impactful decisions. Had a chance recent to
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: sit down with Justice Kennedy talk about his life on
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the court, his life outside the court, and how he
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: really tried to influence the Court in many different ways
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: that I think are quite important for the American people.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you, what the outset? Why did you
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: decide to write this book?
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 0:29
  Speaker 3: I wanted to write about a small town fifty figure.
• 0:37
  Speaker 3: My children grew up, but they didn't.
• 0:40
  Speaker 4: Know about those earlier decades, and my grandchildren didn't know.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: A whole So it seemed to me interesting to me
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: to write that time in our culture. We were our
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: generating after the Great Generation. Right in the small town.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: There was a courtesy, there was a professionalism it. They
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: were simply wanted to write about that Supreme Court. The
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: first thing that many people do is they forget about it,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: so I Carol Port, they want to read about so
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: they don't. But we wanted to have this for our
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: children and our grandchildren to read it. And then as
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: the writing went on to see me. People were saying
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: that it might.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Be adventures to others, as those people that have not
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: been a justice of the Supreme Court, and you were
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: in the court for thirty years. What's the greatest thrill
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: about being on the court and what's the biggest downside
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: to being on the court.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: The biggest thrill is that you have only cases in
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: which the law has been undecided, and you recognize that
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: what you're doing is exploring the law, and you know
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: that after you write what the law is, what do
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: you think it is, there's a whole new vista, a
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: whole new realm to explore. And that's the fascinating part
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: of it. We only take cases in which other courts
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: have disagreed. In India, the Supreme Court has to take
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: every case and they have a fifty thousand case backlog
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: or something. But we select only the cases in which
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: other courts have disagreed. And so that's the fascinating part
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: is that you are on the frontier of the law
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: and what you write is the beginning of a frontier
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: because there's new things to explore.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: Those people aren't familiar. How you decide, let's go through
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the process. You have people who want to appeal to
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. They have something called asciar right, and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: you accept about you have to have.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Four justices agreed to accepted.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: They're called the rule of for You need four or
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: justices to grant us petitions for sir sure Petitions for
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: a sir sir sure ari is a motion to please
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  Speaker 3: take our case. And the Court has thousands of petitions
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: of sir sure ri each year, but they select only
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: those cases where the courts are in conflict and where
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: they think the guidance, where we think the guidance of
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: the court will be helpful.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: When the cases are taken, the briefs are submitted by
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the lawyers. Do you talk to each other the justice
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: before you actually hear the world arguments? Or you just
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: read the briefs and then you go to the oral
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: argument and you don't talk to each other before you
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: actually hear the oral argument.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: We're very careful not to target each other before in
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: partres and farness to the lawyers, and we don't want
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: creeds where you and I united disagree and I don't
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: tell you what I've been talked to the other gender.
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  Speaker 3: We don't do you hear the oral arguments.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: You go back to a conference.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: And you have a hair tight room, so nobody can
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: to what you're saying is and so forth, And nobody
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: is allowed in the room other than the justices, right,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And we have a double door just.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: To remind everybody that what goes on in there is
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: absolutely private forever.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: So then you begin to say what your views are,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: and who decides to speak first, who gets to speak first,
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  Speaker 1: and who speaks last?
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  Speaker 3: The chief Justice speaks first, the next most senior justice senior,
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: because you've he or she has been there. The longest
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: seniority is not by age, but how long you've been around.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: If you're the most junior and it's four to four,
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  Speaker 3: it's very exciting because everybody is listening to what you're
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: going to say.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: So who decides who writes the opinions? Who decides that.
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  Speaker 3: There's a let's assume there's a majority and understand sometimes
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: they're nan. There's a lot more unan in this opinions
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  Speaker 3: than most people. Great the senior justice in the majority,
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  Speaker 3: the sign of the majority, and the senior justice.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: Does any justice ever go down to another justice's chambers
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  Speaker 1: and say, you know what, I really don't like your opinion,
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  Speaker 1: but I'll support you if you support me on another case.
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  Speaker 5: Did you ever do that kind of horse training that no,
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: that would that would be totally improper, might even be illegal.
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  Speaker 3: Queen you never, You never trade.
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: Both nothing improper or washing. Whatever happen right now.
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  Speaker 3: Plus, we don't go to the other chambers. We said
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: it by memo, but everybody gets a copy of that memo.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: So the justices read the memos, they may change their
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: mind and the opinions. But more times when you were
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: on the court, you were the five to four in
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: the majority than anybody else.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: I think that's right. So when you're five to four.
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  Speaker 1: In the majority and you're making the real decisions because
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you're the deciding vote, is that put a special burden
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: on you to really make sure you're you're comfortable with
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: the decision.
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  Speaker 3: You want the views of your other colleagues to indicate
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: that you're going in the right direction or the wrong
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  Speaker 3: direction there, And there's a lot of interchange and the
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  Speaker 3: memos that way that and that's how we wanted to
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: try to put a majority together. Sometimes you're assign the
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: majority opinion and you'll get a memo. Dear Tony, I've
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: read your draft opinion. It seems to me better to
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: wait to read the descent. Oh, it's going to go.
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  Speaker 3: Or sometimes you write a descent and say, you know,
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: on the other way around, you convinced other people.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Let's talk about Bush, g Gore.
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  Speaker 3: You were right.
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  Speaker 1: You wrote to procureum opinion, which meant that it's for
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the whole court.
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  Speaker 3: You didn't put your name on it.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Was that a very difficult decision for the court to
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: get involved in the case and then make the decision
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: that would decide the election to not a.
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  Speaker 3: Difficult decision at all. Seven of us agree with you
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  Speaker 3: to take it when you have a state court decide
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: who it's going to be the president of the United
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  Speaker 3: States and say, well, we're too busy to take it.
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  Speaker 3: Gore bought the case. Gore bought the case. And the
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: rule is that if you're unsuccessful in the lower court
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: and you come to the Supreme Court, you're the so
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: called petitioner and your name is first. So it was
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: Bush who bought the cases of Breme. It was called Bush,
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: but Gore was the one who started the case. Steven
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: of us agreed that we should take the case, and
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: more than a majority six or seven agreed that there
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: was a legal wrong. The question was how to remedy
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  Speaker 3: the legal wrong in.
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  Speaker 2: That case was five to four. Ultimately five to four.
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  Speaker 1: The five people who were for Bush were Republican appointees.
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  Speaker 1: The four who were for Gore were the Democratic appointees.
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  Speaker 1: Some people said that showed that court was really political.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: How do you just respond.
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  Speaker 3: To to begin with that, that's wrong? A suitor and
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  Speaker 3: Stevens were both Republican appointees.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so.
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  Speaker 1: That you don't think the Court was hurt by the
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: perception that it was political decision.
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  Speaker 3: The Court's always hurt, it seems to be if if
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: they if we look political. One of my concerns, my
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: present day concerns, is there's too much partisanship. President's a point,
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  Speaker 3: justice is from their same party, but the partisanship should
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: not be an overriding factor. What you look at is temperament, learning, background, reputation,
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  Speaker 3: whether or not you have those qualities of independence and
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  Speaker 3: caution that make for a good judge. And the partisanship
• 8:31
  Speaker 3: is overemphasized in the Senate during the nomination process. They
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: should not emphasize it so much.
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  Speaker 1: So you will be always remembered for among other things,
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  Speaker 1: the decision you wrote to legalize gay marriage.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, and was that.
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  Speaker 1: A difficult decision for you to come to And have
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: you found any reason why people are upset about that
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: or you think the cot whatever reversed.
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  Speaker 3: That decision of course, or upset about it. And it
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: was a very difficult decision. When we were growing up,
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: the gay movement was something we just didn't know much
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: about or to think much about. With my clerks, we
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: spent days researching the history of marriage, reading the Bible
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: and great works of Jurisprunes before the Christian era. For me,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: the important, perhaps deciding factor was the children. We were
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: amazed to find that at first it looked like seventy
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: five thousand children were adopted by gay parents, and then
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: it turned out they were in the hundreds of thousands.
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  Speaker 3: And these children were in states that did not allow
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  Speaker 3: gay marriage. At a disadvance, if the child was sick,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: only the adopting parent, not the not the spouse, could
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: come to see the child in the hospital. The kids
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  Speaker 3: would would have to say they don't have to have
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  Speaker 3: to have two parents. The stigma and the hardship on
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  Speaker 3: the children with a very important factor for for for
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  Speaker 3: those of us in the majority.
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  Speaker 1: You have been concerned about the civility generally in life,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: and you think civil discourse is an important thing in
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: our country. Basically, you cement are dissenting opinions in the
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  Speaker 1: Supreme Court aren't quite.
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  Speaker 3: As civil as maybe you want.
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  Speaker 2: Prefer and are concern to you.
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  Speaker 1: And you're not on the court now, But if you're
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: concerned that sometimes the justices are very uncomplimentary of each
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: other's views.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, it's a great concern to me that our civil discourse,
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  Speaker 3: our civic discourse, is not civil enough. Uh. Aristotle said
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  Speaker 3: that the democracy depends on an open debate where you
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: respect the dignity of those with whom you disagree. The
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  Speaker 3: democracies only only live if they are sustained over a
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: period of time by a thoughtful, rational discourse, a discourse
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: in which you respect the dignity of those with whom
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: you disagree. And I don't I think that's a danger
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: in our present day and age. What do they call
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: it political identity? If you're a member of Party X,
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: then we just assume you have all these views and
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: we don't like you, or we do like you.
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  Speaker 2: This is not.
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  Speaker 3: Good for our for our public and for our national discourse.
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  Speaker 3: And we have to remember, David, the rest of the
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: world looks at the United States to see how democracy works.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: So let's show back for your background for those who
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: aren't familiar with it.
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: You were born where Sacramento, California, and your father was
• 12:03
  Speaker 5: what a lawyer?
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  Speaker 3: My father was a solo practitioner and had an amazing
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: well practice.
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  Speaker 2: And your mother, my mother had come.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: To sacodonicsion Man from San Francisco in order to work
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: for the state government. And she had been indited that
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: she had been a teacher.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: What were your interests of the boy?
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: We were interested in our family in government. I learned
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: her meet it at an early age classes editor, when
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: I was eight or nine years old, and so I
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: was a little boarded a school and my parents. I
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: thought it would be a good idea. And a page boy,
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: the only page boy in the state.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Senator, You must have done pretty well in high school.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: You got into Stanford You already getting to Stanford those
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: days or not that hard?
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: It was hard to pay for it.
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: Stanford has a good law school.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: My son went to Stanford lawschoo Why wasn't Stanford Law
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: School the one you went to? Why did you just
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: choose to go all the way to the east at
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Harvard Law School?
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: And had you ever been to the east before.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: If you had a list of the they could have
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: a ten finess law professors in the country, six or
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: eight of them would have been at Harvard. Who's is
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: simply Stanford was also very very good.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Harford Law School has a lot of lawyers that come
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: to Wall Street and do something important like practice corporate
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: law on Wall Street.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: And how come you decided not to do that to
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: go back west.
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: It was important for me to go back home. Plus,
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: my father was not well.
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: It seemed to the important the help of the family,
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: and he wanted to be.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: At least again whatever even if higher factors in SCCRAM
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: in San Francisco where the big firm.
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: He wanted me to know what the structure of the
• 13:51
  Speaker 5: legal profession was. Where did you meet your wife, Mary?
• 13:54
  Speaker 4: Mary was also from sacrament Our families knew each other.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: Mary's younger, so we did.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Because of the three big thing we knew each other.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: You have three children and nine graduates of nine, so
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: you liked the number nine, like on the court. Right
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: downside of being on the court is you can't talk
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: to your wife ever about what you're doing.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: No, okay, Mary would never know what I was working on,
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: what the case was, whether I was writing a majority
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: or decent. She didn't even know what the case was,
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: and she'd read about it in the newspapers. Said, oh,
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: you decided that case.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: I said, well yes, so when So you're practicing in
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Sacramento and then somebody gets elected governor of California and
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: he asked for some advice. And that person's name was
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. So you got to know Ronald Reagan.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: Yes, we first met before he was running for governor.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: At the event, and some friends who were mutual friends
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: that would begin to talk, and I said, there is
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: a few things you should never ask. I said, One
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: is about politics.
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: I said, I know about it the way most people
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: know about it.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: So far, all the inspired things that you had had
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: one of the best political teams ever exampled. But he
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: didn't need any advice from me, So I said, don't
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: ask me about politics. I said, second, don't ever ask
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: me who should be appointed a judge. And he said, oh,
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: that's where you could really help. And I said, well
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: maybe so maybe no, But if you get as a lawyer,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: and I had small cases, but I would go in
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: the counties around around Sacramento to appear in court. And
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: if you get the reputation as a judge maker or
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: a judge breaker, it's not good. The judge is going
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: to either lean over towards you or lean maybe against
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: you to show that he's there. And so I just
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: didn't want that. So I said, don't ever ask me
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: who at the appointment to judge?
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Did you ever show him your Reagan imitation?
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think so. So but he had a
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: wonderful sense of humor, and he asked me he wanted
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: to have a city.
• 16:22
  Speaker 6: California battle and for both of them, which would kind
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: of governments sen and and so he asked me to
• 16:35
  Speaker 6: draft the amendment, and I said, I don't know any
• 16:38
  Speaker 6: about budgets or bonds or a special appropriations fun He said, oh,
• 16:45
  Speaker 6: this is a this is an amendment to the Constitution.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: And you teach constitutional call. I said, no, no, the
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: constitutional I teach has nothing to do with But you're
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: talking about you me. You can't write so that we're
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: spending too much money. So as a turnout, I told
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: him that if he could, there were two or three
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: very brilliant people of the were acquaintances of my own.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: Pretty soon Reagan got the part he was he could
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: absorb it.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: He later called you and said, Gerald Ford asked him
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: for a recommendation to be on the Ninth Circuit Court
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: of Appeals, and he recommended you. Although you were only
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: thirty eight years old. You were confirmed easily. And then
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: a couple of years later, Reagan is President of the
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: United States. Did you ever think he would be president
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: United States when you first met him.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: When his name starved the servers, I thought, you know,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: there's a possibility.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right, So he gets to be president United States.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: He has a vacancy on the Supreme Court, and he
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: calls you to be considered for it, and you come
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: in for the interview. Yes, denominates you, and you get
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: confirmed by ninety seven to nothing. Yes, the last justice
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: to be confirmed unanimously.
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: So okay, so you get on the court.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: This is I think the only time in the Supreme
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Court history where you had the same nine justices for
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: eleven years. You know, you work together with these same
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: people for eleven years. Did you get tired of seeing
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: them every day?
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: Or not?
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: Really?
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: Just the one of us, it would be uh, we
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: were together so long. You knew what I did, and
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: you knew what I am. You were going to say,
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: and we could be more or less begin from the
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: beginning from there, and we knew sometimes we wanted to
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: ready poor cardbok and avice each other, which sometimes you
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: didn't help. You didn't in the conference knowing exactly how
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: the cases come out.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: So each justice gets four clerks. They're all young Supreme
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Court qualified people in terms of the top of their class,
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: law schools and so forth. How did you pick your clerks?
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Did you ever pick any of you said, ups, I
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: made a mistake. I shouldn't pick this person.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: The people that apply to you have wonderful resumes and
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: there toward the top of their class, and they've usually
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: clerked with Court of Appeals judge or a district court judge.
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: It was important for me often to try to hire
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: clerks who have been with a district court. District courts
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: in a way, United States district court is the best
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: job in the world. You're the only judge. You run
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: your own empire, and the trial judge gets to see
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: real people, get to see jurors and witnesses, and then
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: turn on the Court of Appeal. We don't don't we
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: don't have If you ever go to England, we were
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: there one time and listening to the argument and the
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: judge that if Council begins to coupe the maxims of
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: statutory construction, I should be forced to leave the room.
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: And the lawyer said, oh, my lord, I would not
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: wish to precipitates such a limitous event, you know. So
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: you know they go on like that. But being a
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: trial judge in England or the United States, I think
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: maybe the best job in the world.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: What would you like people to know about the court?
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And you know they might get by reading your book
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: that they might not already.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: Know that they should know more precisely how collegial it
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: really is. We know that if you and I are
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: the justice together, we know we would disagree. We're supposed
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: to disagree, that's our job, But the question is how
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: we disagree. The interaction on the court is much more
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: fascinating than most people know. You you hear things that
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: you had not thought of before, and you see new
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: possibilities for the law, because after you decide something, there's
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: a whole new realm for which to explore the future.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: It was my I privileged to serve with seventeen different justices.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Your book is called Life, Law, and Liberty, and I
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: enjoyed reading it, certainly. But I want to ask you
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: a final question. A week that's good. It is had
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: by some that if you see the word liberty in
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: an opinion, you know it's written by Justice Kennedy. Why
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: is liberty such an important thing to you?
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: When the authors of the Constitution sat down for a
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: period but three months in Philadelphia, if they had known
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: all of the details of what freedom means, they would
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: have put it down. But they were thoughtful enough to
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: know that the components of freedom, the components of liberty,
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: are something we must learn over time. So they use
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: Space's word like life, liberty, and property. Incident, even sometimes
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: think of this thing. We think of life, liberty and happiness.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: That's the Declaration of independence. The Constitution talked about life, liberty,
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: and property. Why doesn't the Constitution talk about happiness? Because
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: that's judicially unenforceable, although although perhaps and no judges haved
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: be ready to try.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: And you always carry a copy of the Constitution with
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: you everywhere you go.
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: Well, usually.
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: I do.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: Because it's interesting. This is both the Constitution and the
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Declaration of Independence. If you read the Constitution of the
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: United States, sit down cover to cover, it'll take you
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: about two and a half hours, and you'll fall asleep
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: a part of it. The preamble, the preface is simply beautiful.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: The Constitution, it's fascinating that has lasted for We have
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: the two d and fifty anniversary of the Declaration of
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: Independence next year, and we're going to have a time
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: capsule that people will open two hundred and fifty years
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: from now. If we put the Constitution of the United
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: States in the time capsule two hundred and fifty years
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: from now, will it still be no? Will it still
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: be respected? Will it still be the way in which
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: our nation defines ourselves. It has been for the last
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: two hundred and fifty years.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to hear more of my interviews. You
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: can subscribe and download my podcast on Spotify, Apple, or
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: wherever you listen.