It might be added that corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires. Corporations help structure and facilitate the activities of human beings, to be sure, and their โpersonhoodโ often serves as a useful legal fiction. But they are not themselves members of โWe the Peopleโ by whom and for whom our Constitution was established.
John Paul StevensBy 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.
John Paul StevensA democracy cannot function effectively when its constituent members believe laws are being bought and sold.
John Paul StevensThe graphic emphasis placed on those first lines is rather hard to square with the proposition that the monument expresses no particular religious preference.
John Paul StevensJust as the right to speak and the right to refrain from speaking are complementary components of a broader concept of individual freedom, so also the individual's freedom to choose his own creed is the counterpart of his right to refrain from accepting the creed established by the majority.
John Paul Stevens