A democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.

I think this country would be much better off if we did not have capital punishment.... We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.

By requiring that an execution be relatively painless, we necessarily protect the inmate from enduring any punishment that is comparable to the suffering inflicted on his victim. This trend, while appropriate and required by the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, actually undermines the very premise on which public approval of the retribution rationale is based.

The level of discourse reaching a mailbox simply cannot be limited to that which would be suitable for a sandbox.

At bottom, the Court's opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.

To show a well-founded fear of persecution, an alien need not prove that it is more likely than not that he or she will be persecuted in his or her home country.

Although it may not be a castle, [it is the] functional equivalent of a hotel room, a vacation and retirement home or a hunting and fishing cabin.