Merrick Garland Quotes

Everybody, I think, who hopes to become a judge would aspire to be able to write as well as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. None are going to be able to attain that. But I’ll try at least — if confirmed to be as brief and pithy as he is.

People must be confident that a judge’s decisions are determined by the law, and only the law.

Well, of course I have great personal affection for the justice for whom I clerked, Justice Brennan.

The most important thing that a clerk can do for a judge, I tell my clerks, is to prevent me from jumping off the cliff if I don’t want to. That is, sometimes I don’t realize there’s a cliff there at all, that the implications of what I’m doing are really totally wrong, and that sometimes it takes another person or two other people to warn me that you’re just not reading this case correctly, or you’re just not understanding the implications of what a decision in this way would be.”

The role of the court is to apply law to the facts of the case before it … not to legislate, not to arrogate to itself the executive power, not to hand down advisory opinion on the issues of the day.

Fidelity to the Constitution and the law has been the cornerstone of my professional life, and it’s the hallmark of the kind of judge I have tried to be for the past 18 years. If the Senate sees fit to confirm me to the position for which I have been nominated today, I promise to continue on that course.

The hard things are when you have to make your friends disappointed because you think you’re required, for example, by the law to do something that maybe is different than what you would do as a matter of public policy.

For a judge to be worthy of such trust, he or she must be faithful to the Constitution and to the statutes passed by the Congress. He or she must put aside his personal views or preferences, and follow the law -- not make it.

But when I asked myself, as I often do: 'What would Judge Friendly have done?'

Our job is to pursue justice, without fear or favor. Our job is not to do what is politically convenient. Our job is not to take orders from the President, from Congress, or from anyone else, about who or what to criminally investigate. As the President himself has said, and I reaffirm today: I am not the President’s lawyer. I will also add I am not Congress’s prosecutor. The Justice Department works for the American people. Our job is to follow the facts and the law. And that is what we do. All of us recognize that with this work comes public scrutiny, criticism, and legitimate oversight. These are appropriate and important given the matters and the gravity of the matters before the Department. But singling out individual career public servants who are just doing their jobs is dangerous — particularly at a time of increased threats to the safety of public servants and their families. We will not be intimidated. We will do our jobs free from outside influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.

The extraordinary circumstances here require the appointment of a special counsel for this matter. This appointment underscores for the public the department’s commitment to independence and accountability.

I want to provide clarity about what the job of the Justice Department is, and what it is not. Our job is to help keep our country safe. That includes working closely with local police departments and communities across the country to combat violent crime. In fact, today we are announcing the results of a recent U.S. Marshals operation conducted with state and local law enforcement. That operation targeted violent fugitives and resulted in 4,400 arrests across 20 cities in just three months. Our work also includes combating the drug cartels that are poisoning Americans. Last Friday, we extradited Ovidio Guzman Lopez, a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, from Mexico to the United States. He is the son of El Chapo and one of more than a dozen cartel [leaders] we have indicted and extradited to the United States. Our job includes seeking justice for the survivors of child exploitation, human smuggling, and sex trafficking. And it includes protecting democratic institutions — like this one — by holding accountable all those criminally responsible for the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Our job is also to protect civil rights. That includes protecting our freedoms as Americans to worship and think as we please, and to peacefully express our opinions, our beliefs, and our ideas. It includes protecting the right of every eligible citizen to vote and to have that vote counted. It includes combating discrimination, defending reproductive rights under law, and deterring and prosecuting attacks, such as hate crimes. And our job is to uphold the rule of law. That means that we apply the same laws to everyone. There is not one set of laws for the powerful and another for the powerless; one for the rich, and one for the poor; one for Democrats, another for Republicans; or different rules, depending upon one’s race or ethnicity or religion.

Trust that justice will be done in our courts without prejudice or partisanship is what, in a large part, distinguishes this country from others.

The great joy of being a prosecutor is that you don’t take whatever case walks in the door. You evaluate the case, you make your best judgement, you only go forward if you believe that the defendant is guilty. You may well be wrong, but you have done your best to ensure that as far as the evidence that you are able to attain, the person is guilty. It is the kind of even-handed balancing that a judge should undertake although of course a judge has the advantage of having somebody speak for the other side.

The constitution sets all three branches out as co-equal. The obligation of the judicial branch — as far back as the decision in Marbury v. Madison — is to review the constitutionality and legality of actions by the other branches. And that is its only job, to decide cases and controversies in front of it under article three.