Jed S. Rakoff Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“Judges are the people who have to protect the rights of individuals, have to protect the rights of minorities, have to protect the rights in the Constitution, have to protect the requirement that the executive and the legislature not simply exercise raw power but adhere to standards of reasonableness and constitutionality.”

“It's very hard to uphold individual liberty when the person you're representing is often a crook.”

“Everything needs to be public. The legitimacy of the courts comes from the fact that they reason openly, on the record, based on facts.”

“I have a past of making a fool of myself.”

“I was always attracted to taking a novel position, but one grounded in the materials I'd been given, not made up out of whole cloth.”

“One of the many things I like about baseball is how it combines individual talent and teamsmanship.”

“When I was a kid, and for many years after, I was your classic afraid-to-dance-type person.”

“Companies do not commit crimes; only their agents do. And while a company might get the benefit of some such crimes, prosecuting the company would inevitably punish, directly or indirectly, the many employees and shareholders who were totally innocent.”

“I've never been impressed with bureaucratic tradition. I don't like it when the parties come to me and say, 'This is the way that it's always done, judge.' I never found anything in the oath I took or the statutes I was asked to look at that said, 'Judge, stop thinking, because this is the way it was done before.'”

“If crimes are committed, they are committed by people; they are not committed by some free-floating entity. These companies and other entities don't operate on automatic pilot. There are individuals that make decisions - and some make the right decisions, and some make the wrong decisions.”