Sorry for that unannounced week-long break. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was visiting the American Academy in Berlin this past week, for which I had been preparing much of the fall. I had the privilege of escorting him to various meetings with German government officials and taking part in or observing numerous workshops and lectures with German and European judges, law professors and law students.
It was quite interesting to be that close to someone so influential. As Justice Breyer said himself many times this week, judges are people too! Indeed, one of Breyer’s favorite things to say is that Supreme Court justices are not infallible because they’re brilliant — they are brilliant because they have the last word, and someone has to have the last word.
Some of the sessions I participated in were off-the-record, so I don’t want to comment much on what I heard, but I will say that I find it interesting and commendable that Justice Breyer is one of the justices (along with Scalia) who regularly travel and give speeches both domestically and abroad about what the court is and what it does. While judges are not supposed to be politicians clamoring for attention and publicity, it lends the judicial branch greater credence and legitimacy when people understand what the court does and (to some extent anyway) how and why it reaches the decisions it does. Justices like Clarence Thomas and David Souter (correct me if I’m wrong), to name just two, who rarely if ever participate in conferences and panel discussions and don’t write books or articles explaining their judicial philosophies to the public do a disservice to the country they are employed to serve.
Anyway, this was not only one of the most interesting weeks of the year so far for me, but also one of the seemingly longest of my life, so I didn’t make time (I won’t say I didn’t have time… must make a greater effort!) to blog. I will be back in the States Dec. 22-30 and may not blog regularly from there, but I plan to post at least a few times. In particular, I am working on travel diary entries from some of my trips this summer and fall, and would like to post those before the New Year!
