These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual.

The First Amendment guarantees liberty of human expression in order to preserve in our Nation what Mr. Justice Holmes called a "free trade in ideas." To that end, the Constitution protects more than just a man's freedom to say or write or publish what he wants. It secures as well the liberty of each man to decide for himself what he will read and to what he will listen. The Constitution guarantees, in short, a society of free choice.

The dichotomy between personal liberties and property rights is a false one. Property does not have rights. People have rights.

Abortion is inherently different from other medical procedures, because no other procedure involves the purposeful termination of a potential life.

A person's mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not give rise to probable cause to search that person.

I think that the Court's task, in this as in all areas of constitutional adjudication, is not responsibly aided by the uncritical invocation of metaphors like the ' wall of separation,' a phrase nowhere to be found in the Constitution.

Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself. It is a hallmark of an authoritarian regime.