Most high courts in other nations do not have discretion, such as we enjoy, in selecting the cases that the high court reviews. Our court is virtually alone in the amount of discretion it has.

The fact is that knowledge about the Constitution and the Court is not something that is handed down through the gene pool; every generation has to learn it. And I'm not sure the recent generations have done that good a job of learning about it.

The more education a woman has, the wider the gap between men's and women's earnings for the same work.

I think people know very little, really, about the court, how it works and its history. And both of those things are important in our country, but they're not things that most citizens know much about.

Suppose you had a cross burning in a play or a movie... Would that be intimidating?

I don't know how a judge can concentrate on being fair and impartial when he or she is faced with possible jail time for making a decision that others deem incorrect.

It matters enormously to a successful democratic society like ours that we have three branches of government, each with some independence and some control over the other two. Thats set out in the Constitution.