I love to write.
— Raymond Kethledge
In my own opinions as a judge, I have never yet had occasion to find a statute ambiguous.
Cell-site data - like mailing addresses, phone numbers, and IP addresses - are information that facilitate personal communications rather than part of the content of those communications themselves. The government's collection of business records containing these data, therefore, is not a search.
I use solitude as a judge and as a person - a lot.
Among the most serious allegations a federal court can address are that an Executive agency has targeted citizens for mistreatment based on their political views. No citizen - Republican or Democrat, Socialist or libertarian - should be targeted or even have to fear being targeted on those grounds.
Values that I would be enforcing if I were a judge are not just my values, that I am not striking something down simply because I don't like it. That is a countermajoritarian aspect of our system of government. I would start with the text.
In my view, statutory ambiguities are less like dandelions on an unmowed lawn than they are like manufacturing defects in a modern automobile: they happen, but they are pretty rare, given the number of parts involved.
Analytical clarity is the result of hard, syllogistic thinking, and that thinking has to be done alone. It's not just being physically alone but also alone with your thoughts - not looking at your phone, not hearing the buzz of an incoming text message or email.
I won't write about a subject unless I've mastered it.
Reading a brief filled with ad hominem attacks is like listening to my kids fight, except that I have to wait until we're in the courtroom to tell the attacking lawyer what I think about it.
The lawyers in the Department of Justice have a long and storied tradition of defending the nation's interests and enforcing its laws - all of them, not just selective ones - in a manner worthy of the department's name.
The First Amendment protects the Internet.
While driving to work, I'll choose to think about a particular subject rather than just have random thought streams landing on one subject or another. For example, I might think about the structure of an opinion. Or I might think about the first sentence of an opinion, refining it.
I would make sure that the values that I would be enforcing if I were a judge are not just my values.
A lawyer who makes an impression as credible, competent, and civil is one whose thoughts I'll take seriously.
