The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our scheme. Even when an ordinance requires a permit to make a speech, to deliver a sermon, to picket, to parade, or to assemble, it need not be honored when it's invalid on its face.
Potter StewartFor me this is not something that can be swept under the rug and forgotten in the interest of forced Sunday togetherness.
Potter StewartTo force a lawyer on a defendant can only lead him to believe that the law contrives against him.
Potter StewartWe dedicated ourselves to a powerful idea - organic law rather than naked power. There seems to be universal acceptance of that idea in the nation.
Potter StewartIn fact, a fundamental interdependence exists between the personal right to liberty and the personal right to property.
Potter StewartThe equal protection standard of the constitution has one clear and central meaning - it absolutely prohibits invidious [repugnant] discrimination by government...Under our Constitution, any official action that treats a person differently on account of his race or ethnic origin is inherently [by nature] suspect and presumptively [probably] invalid...Under the Constitution we have, one practice in which government may never engage in the practice of racism - not even "temporarily" and not even as an "experiment."
Potter Stewart