Topic: Interpretation of Bill of Rights at Wartime?
Senator: Leahy
Date: SEPTEMBER 13, 2005
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LEAHY: Let me ask you this: Do you feel that you would be able to interpret the Bill of Rights the same whether we're at wartime or not?
ROBERTS: I do, Senator.
I read the chief's book that you quoted from. And for someone who sits on the court that I sit on now, we famously look back to one of the first cases decided in the D.C. Circuit. It was the Aaron Burr trial. And if anything's a model...
LEAHY: I thought you might mention that.
ROBERTS: Well, it's, sort of, a motto of our court, an opinion that was written out of that, in which the judge explained that it was our obligation to calmly poise the scales of justice in dangerous times as well as calm times -- that's a paraphrase.
But the phrase, "calmly poise the scales of justice" is, if anything, the motto of the court on which I now sit.
And that would be the guiding principle for me, whether I'm back on that court or different one, because some factors may be different, the issues may be different, the demands may be different, but the Bill of Rights remains the same. And the obligation of the court to protect those basic liberties in times of peace and in times of war, in times of stress and in times of calm, that doesn't change.
LEAHY: I hope you feel that way. I know people have spoken of the First Amendment as not there to protect popular speech; that's easy. It's unpopular speech.
And as I mentioned yesterday, our state really wanted to make sure the Bill of Rights was going to be there before we joined the union.
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