We have a complex system of government. You have to teach it to every generation.

How dare you make my life a felony.

I like to think that the court will continue to be held in high regard by the public. I think it should be.

We don't accomplish anything in this world alone... and whatever happens is the result of the whole tapestry of one's life and all the weavings of individual threads form one to another that creates something.

My concerns through the years increased about the concerns of an independent judiciary and how we maintain it. Certainly in the states. I'm a product of state government in my own state of Arizona. And it seemed to me that the popular election of judges was creating major problems in many states, and we had improved the system in Arizona. And I thought the nation ought to at least rethink how we select our nation's trial judges in the states.

Apparently a great many people have forgotten that the framers of our Constitution went to such great effort to create an independent judicial branch that would not be subject to retaliation by either the executive branch or the legislative branch because of some decision made by those judges.

What the framers of the Constitution tried to achieve when they wrote that Constitution back in the 1700s was an independent federal judiciary. They wanted federal judges to be appointed by the president, with the advice and consent of the Senate, and to serve for good behavior.