The risk of racial prejudice infecting a capital sentencing proceeding is especially serious in light of the complete finality of the death sentence.

Maintaining order in the classrooms has never been easy and it is evident that the school setting requires some easing of the restrictions to which searches by public authorities are ordinarily subject.

Respondent would have us announce a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do.

The Court is most vulnerable and comes nearest to illegitimacy when it deals with judge-made constitutional law having little or no cognizable roots in the language or design of the Constitution.... There should be, therefore, great resistance to ... redefining the category of rights deemed to be fundamental. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily takes to itself further authority to govern the country without express constitutional authority.

To exclude all jurors who would be in the slightest way effected by the prospect of the death penalty would be to deprive the defendant of the impartial jury to which he or she is entitled under the law.

Sports constantly make demands on the participant for top performance, and they develop integrity, self-reliance and initiative. They teach you a lot about working in groups, without being unduly submerged in the group.

The issue presented is whether the Federal Constitution confers a fundamental right upon homosexuals to engage in sodomy, and hence invalidates the laws of the many States that still make such conduct illegal, and have done so for a very long time.... Respondent would have us announce, as the Court of Appeals did, a fundamental right to engage in homosexual sodomy. This we are quite unwilling to do.