He also talked about the kavanaugh confirmation hearing and how it compared with Clarence Thomas confirmation. As i said, i am thrilled and delighted to see such a crowd this is a notforprofit volunteer educational organization. At the Unitarian Universalist fellowship in boca raton. Thank them for the use of the hall. Cspan is here, so this is an historic occasion. I am tony laducca. You encountered several of the Board Members when you are checking in today. Carol, whocknowledge is where . Where are you, carol . Our executive director. [applause] doing a lot of the heavy lifting associated with this. There are a couple of business items i want to address. Photographs, recordings not permitted. We have already turned off the cell phones. Ok. We are beginning our full the 15th. Monday we have a open house scheduled 1 00ext week, the 10th, at at the Boca Raton Community center, which is right near the city hall near palmetto. You have a Program Brochure on your seats when you came in that shows our full program for the eightweek session, which i think looks very exciting. Those of you who are new, there are signup sheets that you can turn in when we are done. The business at hand. We are privileged, today, to have with us retired Supreme CourtJustice John Paul stevens. [applause] he hasnt even said anything yet. [laughter] the origins of this event are traceable to paula challif, a member of our board as well. Not incidentally, paula plays bridge with Justice Stevens. That is the basis whereby he comes to be here today. Thank you, paula. The conversation will be moderated by frank, a familiar figure to many of you. Frank started out in long island and graduated from the u. S. Naval academy. He served in the navy. Completed a journalism masters at northwestern university, began work in chicago and eventually came to south florida and joined the miami herald for several years and then he moved to the Palm Beach Post where he has been writing a local news column for it says 2016 ears, frank. Can it be . He also lectures at fsu and probably does other things i dont know about. Anyway. [laughter] while Justice Stevens will have to leave immediately afterward, and i ask you to please give him some easy access of the aisle, frank has agreed to stick around if there is audience interest in doing that. No further delays. Frank. [applause] can you hear in the back . We might need a microphone to pass around. Are you okay . We will try it. I think we will need a mic. Ok, were supposed to be coming to the system. Ok. My best experience with south florida audiences is they can never be too loud. But dont want to waste anymore time. This is a thrill for me, and it should be for all of you. There it goes. All right. Its my distinct honor to introduce retired Supreme CourtJustice John Paul stevens. He is one of the Living Legends of american jurisprudence. Its true. [applause] Justice Stevens became the 101st Supreme Court justice after being nominated by gerald ford in 1975, and was swiftly confirmed by the senate in a unanimous vote. [laughter] thats not happening anytime soon. [laughter] later, while looking back at his presidency, president ford remarked he was prepared to allow historys judgment on his entire term in office to be rested if necessary exclusively on his nomination of Justice John Paul stevens to the Supreme Court. Justice stevens joined the court when he was 55 years old. He served for 35 years. The third longest tenure of any Supreme Court justice in american history. On aaped Public Discourse variety ofng issues. From guantanamo to environmental regulation. Whether it was flagburning, vote counting, or George Carlins seven dirty words, Justice Stevens voice leaves us with a rich history of his fine mind and a compassionate human being. With a sense of duty that earned him a bronze star in world war ii as a navy codebreaker, and carried forward to the nations highest coat theageage of 90, Justice Stevens has truly lived a life of Public Service. He continues to write about legal issues including an oped he wrote after the parkland massacre for the New York Times entitled repeal the Second Amendment. [applause] i guess we will have to talk about that and so many other things. Everyone, please rise for a great american, a Living Legend in our midst, Justice John Paul stevens. [applause] so, how did i do . Do you have a dissenting opinon ion on that . Retired, one of the tv commentators called me a quitter. I explained that i had reasons for retiring. When i described my opinion on the Citizens United case, which allowed unlimited donations in election campaigns, i gave a fairly long dissent. I think it was 86 pages. That is fairly long. I summarized it in less than that. I had some difficulty articulating what i was trying to say at the time, and i had some kind i of trouble that persuaded me i if i was going to have difficulty speaking and doing my work, i should quit. That is the reason why i became a quitter. I thought i would explain that from time to time, i still have problems articulating what i am do,ng to say, and if i please forgive me. I will do my best. I was going to talk about this later, but now that we are on the subject, florida requires its state judges to retire at the age of 70, which i guess in your case you were kind of just getting warmed up. What do you think about this notion that Public Service should have a cap . A lot of people have criticized and memberssenators of congress that have gone well into their 80s. Do you think there should be a retirement age . I have never been in favor of that because i think very often the retirement requirement does cause the public to lose valuable years of service. It certainly serves the function whyroviding a reason for somebody has to move onto Something Else. Discuss inwe should some extent what is going on lately with the Supreme Court and particular last Thursdays Senate confirmation hearing, which was broadcast live and watched quite as Many Americans as watched the super bowl. It was one of those events that captivated the nations interest. My question for you, is this the best we can do as far as confirmation process where we had this very political process where everybody sort of gets in amps and this is a drama that is played out like a soap opera on television . No, i dont think its the best we can do. We certainly should be able to do better because it is an issue of credibility that should be resolved on its merits, not on the basis of political speech back and forth. I should explain that with , iard to judge kavanaugh have a picture of him in my book. I have written a book called which iendment in recommend fundamental changes to our laws, and one of them is to reverse the Citizens United case , which allows unlimited political contributions to candidates. [applause] feel as apparently some few do that my dissent had the right in that particular debate. In my book, i describe some of the reasons for the rule that i think should apply, and which beforely for many years that case. Describeiscussion, i an opinion written by judge thenaugh on that very issue issue in the case was whether a canadian citizen and a citizen of israel living in new york temporarily could make expenditures in the elections that were going on at the time. United, theyizens brought a proceeding in the federal court asking for an injunction against enforcing the statute that prohibits expenditures by foreign cynicisms in american elections. Judge kavanaugh wrote the opinion upholding the statute and holding that they could be barred from making contributions to an american election. I thought he wrote a very persuasive opinion, and as a matter of fact, i put his picture in the book to illustrate my admiration for him. One of the cases he cited in that opinion was my dissent in Citizens United, which i thought showed the fact that he is a very good judge, had very good character and taste in cases to follow. I forget what the point i was going in any event, at that the i thought he had qualifications to sit on the Supreme Court and should be confirmed if he was ever selected. I have changed my views for reasons that have no relationship to his intellectual ability or his record as a federal judge. He is a fine federal judge, and he should have been confirmed when he was nominated, but i think that his performance during the hearings caused me to change my mind. I think there were several commentators, larry shribe among them, a constitutional law professor at harvard, have written pieces in which they suggest that he has demonstrated a potential bias involving enough potential litigants before the court that he would not be able to perform his full responsibility. I think that there is merit in that criticism and that the senator should really Pay Attention to it for the good of the court. Its not healthy to get a new justice who can only do a parttime job. [applause] how is that different from the Clarence Thomas case . Clarence thomas had a bruising confirmation session hearings in 1991. How did the other justices react to that and the fact that you had someone who was a polarizing figure in a body of people who are a collegial group of people . Justice stevens there are different answers to that. There was nothing in the hearings that disqualified him from sitting in cases after he came on the court. Secondly, i dont remember any conflict in the testimony between him and anita hill. I think you could believe everything he said, and he may have acted unwisely and improperly without saying he would be disqualified from acting as an impartial judge or an honest judge. He turned out i disagree with him on most of his important rulings, but as a person, i am very fond of him. He is a very decent and likable person. You cannot help but like Clarence Thomas, which i dont think necessarily would be the true of this particular nominee. [laughter] you watched the hearings and people who have watched and followed his explanations of things in his yearbook, people have noted that some of the things he said under oath were at some level of being evasive or not true. Is that, in itself, disqualifying when you swear to tell the truth before a Congressional Committee and get a number of facts wrong or mischaracterized . Justice stevens im not aware of any facts that he got wrong, that clarence got wrong. Not clarence, im talking about justice kavanaugh. Justice stevens that is important, yes. Is it disqualifying . Justice stevens not necessarily. In this case there have been enough people in categories where he would be unable to sit as a judge. You have been a gigantic proponent of the separation of the three branches of government. You almost didnt participate in the swearingin of Justice Roberts because the george w. Bush administration wanted that ceremony to happen in the white house, and you firmly believed it should happen in the Supreme Court. I want to talk about why you think the Supreme Court should not see themselves as aligned with any particular president. Justice stevens i really think it is important. In my particular case, gerald ford came to the Supreme Court he participated in the ceremony, which i thought was really appropriate because it is a Supreme Court ceremony, not a president ial ceremony. In my own case, everything went beautifully. For sandra day oconnor, Ronald Reagan came to the court, but in later cases, they decided to hold the swearingin ceremony at the white house rather than the court. I think that sends an incorrect message. That this is a president ial event when it is not. The president should have nothing to do with it and no continuing influence of his nominee. I thought that was symbolically a mistake. I refused to attend probably four or five swearingins of my colleagues, david souter, Ruth Ginsburg, stephen pryor, they were sworn in at the white house. In each case, i didnt go. I did swear in john roberts because i strongly approved of the appointment. I thought he was an excellent appointment. I still think he is an excellent chief justice, even though i disagree with a number of his rulings. He is a very fine person. I thought that if i did not go to the white house on his swearing in, it would create an impression that he did not approve of the appointment, which was not true with the others. I did go to the white house and swear him in at that time. The obama appointments were held in the Supreme Court . Justice stevens yes. Obama followed what i think is the correct practice in this regard. Justice stevens wrote an opinion on a case that is somehow relevant. That was apologetic, bill clinton versus paula jones, where your opinion basically said that a sitting president is not immune from any civil prosecution or civil litigation and can be held accountable while serving as president. Do you feel the same about a criminal prosecution . Should there be immunity from a president participating in that . Justice stevens the fundamental rule that applies is that no one is above the law. No individual is above the law. I would assume that would apply to federal law in current times. You are not persuaded by the argument that the president s job is so important that to get bogged down in a criminal prosecution would make him not an effective president and that it should wait until he is out of office . Justice stevens the court hasnt faced that squarely, but i think it would be most unusual that would be a justification to postpone a trial. One of the decisions to which you were vociferously opposed was the bush v. Gore decision. I dont think it got 86 pages but it was up there. I want to read you this and ask you this question. You wrote, it falls to the men and women of the judicial system that they are the true backbone of the rule of law. Time will heal the wound inflicted by todays decision. One thing is certain, although we may never know with certainty the identity of the winner of this years president ial election, the identity of the loser is clear. It is the nations confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian in the rule of law. This is a strong statement. Justice stevens its correct. [laughter] [applause] how have we done over the intervening 18 years . Have we done much to repair the damage that was done in your mind, or has it gotten worse . Has the court become even more political . Justice stevens i think it is worse. I regret to say it but i really do. I think that case was a terrible example of judicial behavior. If it could be erased and start over again, we should do so. One of the ironies about that case the election might have way because same they had a ballot in Palm Beach County that caused voters to mistakenly vote for they wanted to vote for buchanan they wanted to vote for gore, i think. That was the theory. But punched in buchanan. Justice stevens i think the studies showed that those particular ballots were sufficient in number to account for the total election in florida and the whole country. We now know what might have been the answer to the election. I dont think we have modified our lack of confidence in that decision. Ironic, in all of the opinions written in that case, there is only one that explains why they granted a stay of the recount. The florida Supreme Court had ordered a recount throughout the state. The actual holding of the court was to enjoin the recount. You had one opinion that explained the reasoning. Hon. Justice stevens the one opinion in the case was nino scalias response to my dissent on the order to stay the recount, which should have been done on its own merits because it was of such importance. The answer to the request for a recount was there was no irreparable damage. There had to be irreparable damage to enjoin public action of that kind, and there was no showing of irreparable damage, and that was the debate between nino and me at the original stage. I love that you call Justice Scalia nino. [laughter] Justice Stevens well that is his name. You are also talking about Justice Scalias teller decision in 2008. For the first time in u. S. History, it enshrined a person with an individual rights to have a firearm. You thought that was a disastrous decision. Justice stevens i did because it had been settled law throughout our history prior to that decision that the Second Amendment merely protected the right of a militia to have firearms. The reason they had that right was because shortly after the revolution, and in our early history, there was a fear that the National Government might be too strong, and the state militias needed to be able to protect themselves with their own firearms. That certainly is not a common problem today as i am aware of anyway. So, not only is there a total absence of historical