Justice Breyer selected to receive ABA Medal
The American Bar Association is proud to announce that it will award U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer the 2022 ABA Medal, the association’s highest honor. Breyer will accept the award at the ABA’s Annual Meeting on Saturday, August 6, in Chicago.
Breyer, who retires from the Supreme Court at the end of this current term, has had an extraordinary career as a public servant, a defender of the rule of law, a promoter of judicial independence and a friend to the ABA. He has written more than 525 opinions as a Supreme Court justice and demonstrated a commitment over the decades to trying to make our democracy work in fair and practical ways.
“I am greatly honored to receive the ABA Medal,” Breyer said. “To me, the medal represents the American Bar Association. The ABA represents the bar. The bar represents the legal profession. And the legal profession represents the rule of law throughout the United States and the rest of the world.”
Breyer has been an ABA member since 1988. He has had a long involvement with the association, speaking to ABA conferences, annual meetings and special events on numerous occasions where he recognized the ABA as a forum for the important exchange of legal ideas. As a judge on the First Circuit in 1994, Breyer was active in the Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice and was in line to become vice chair but had to withdraw when he was nominated to the Supreme Court.
Breyer delivered a keynote address at the 2002 ABA Annual Meeting and spoke virtually to the ABA General Assembly in 2020. In 2021, Breyer was a featured virtual speaker for the April annual meeting of the Section of International Law and made a similar appearance in March 2016.
Among his many other appearances at ABA programs, he joined Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to discuss civic literacy at the 2011 Annual Meeting.
“We could not find a more deserving recipient of our association’s highest honor, the ABA Medal,” said ABA President Reginald Turner. “Justice Breyer is a giant in the legal world who has dedicated nearly 50 years of his career to public service. His support of the ABA, coupled with his commitment to the rule of law and his profound contributions to making our democracy function fairly, is truly inspiring.”
During his career, Breyer’s contributions and influence have extended to numerous aspects of law. As a professor at Harvard Law School, he has been credited by many scholars with transforming the field of administrative law to make it more pragmatic, by taking into account the reasoning and expertise of federal agencies, the substance of rules and regulations and the likely impact on people. In 1994, he became an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, where he has served for 28 years until his expected retirement in July 2022.
Breyer has always exhibited a strong allegiance to the rule of law and an unwavering belief in judicial independence. He has made the point often to many different audiences that judges achieve independence by instilling trust. To accomplish that, he said, they must persuade the public that they are not politicians in robes and that they make their best effort to decide cases based on the law, not on personal preferences.
The ABA Medal is bestowed upon a lawyer for “exceptionally distinguished service ... to the cause of American jurisprudence.” Past recipients include lawyers who have served on the Supreme Court of the United States, including Chief Justices Warren E. Burger and Charles Evans Hughes, and Associate Justices Lewis F. Powell Jr., Sandra Day O’Connor, Thurgood Marshall, William J. Brennan, Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Tom Clark, and Felix Frankfurter.
With Roe overturned, legal precedent moves to centerstage
With the June 24 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturns the landmark 1973 abortion decision in Roe v. Wade, the doctrine of stare decisis has fueled debate over the extent to which the U.S. Supreme Court is bound by legal precedent.
Stare decisis is a Latin term that means “to stand by things decided.” As an American Bar Association Legal Fact Check (https:// abalegalfactcheck.com) posted June 10 points out, for the Supreme Court to overturn a prior decision is neither commonplace nor rare. A 2018 report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) found that the court has reversed itself 141 times, or on average less than once a year since the first in 1851. Since the CRS report was issued, the court has overturned a handful of its prior decisions.
“The Supreme Court applies the doctrine of stare decisis by following the rules of its prior decisions unless there is a ‘special justification’ — or, at least, ‘strong grounds’ — to overrule precedent,” the CRS report said. Those grounds include society’s reliance on precedent, whether the precedent defies practical workability or is a remnant of an abandoned doctrine, and whether it is based upon facts that have changed so significantly that the rule is no longer applicable.
The U.S. Supreme Court has often stated that following its prior decisions encourages stability and brings uniformity in the application of law to cases and litigants. Former Associate Justice Lewis Powell once remarked: “The elimination of constitutional stare decisis would represent an explicit endorsement of the idea that the Constitution is nothing more than what five justices say it is.”
The doctrine is not found in the U.S. Constitution nor in any statute but has a long tradition in English common law. In 1788, Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper 78 wrote, “To avoid an arbitrary discretion in the judges, they need to be bound down by rules and precedents …(and) the records of those precedents must unavoidably swell to a very considerable bulk.”
As the ABA Legal Fact Check explained, stare decisis operates both horizontally and vertically. Judicial hierarchy compels lower courts to follow precedent from a higher court, and Supreme Court decisions become the law. Horizontal precedent refers to the nation’s highest court adhering to its own precedents. Most states follow the federal model for both.
ABA honors 2022 recipients for government and public sector service
Support of Afghan refugees, protecting low-income families from wrongful eviction and commitment to advancing the legal profession are some of the accomplishments recognized by the American Bar Association Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division (GPSLD) through its 2022 Dorsey, Hodson and Nelson Awards.
The Dorsey Award honors an outstanding public defender or legal aid lawyer. The Hodson Award recognizes an exceptional government or public sector law office. The Nelson Award recognizes superior, sustained contributions to the ABA by an individual public sector lawyer.
“We know that every day public lawyers toil in the trenches to protect our democracy, improve our communities and ensure that our governments treat everyone fairly,” said Ed Monahan, chair of the ABA Government & Public Sector Lawyers Division. “GPSLD proudly recognizes the inspiring dedication of public sector lawyers while helping the community at large gain a better understanding and appreciation of their exceptional achievements.”
This year’s honorees are:
• 2022 Dorsey Award
Alan Mills is the executive director of the Uptown People’s Law Center (UPLC) in Chicago. He advocates for some of the most marginalized people in our society. For the last 40 years, Mills has brought numerous class action lawsuits on behalf of people facing unconstitutional conditions in Illinois jails and prisons. In addition, he is part of a nationwide movement to end solitary confinement. He also works tirelessly to defend tenants facing wrongful eviction. During his tenure, Mills successfully ensured UPLC’s financial stability and expansion, increasing UPLC’s staff from four to 12. His exemplary leadership serves as a role model for others in the legal aid community.
• 2022 Hodson Award
The 21st Theater Sustainment Command Office of the Staff Judge Advocate, Department of the U.S. Army (The 21st TSC OSJA), advises Army commanders across eight European countries and provides support to thousands of military personnel and DoD civilians. The 21st TSC OSJA’s legal advice allowed commanders to navigate waves of Covid-19 infections and a myriad of DoD, U.S. and host nation guidelines while accomplishing their mission, including the successful completion of Defender 21, a 26-nation multi-exercise event with nearly 30,000 service members training together across Europe. After the Taliban captured Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, the 21st TSC OSJA provided legal support and coordinated with other agencies to ensure that evacuees were treated compassionately, humanely and lawfully. The procedures used by the 21st TSC OSJA were reviewed by the Department of State and shared across the DoD to be used by others assisting Afghan travelers. Most recently, due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the 21st TSC OSJA is providing legal guidance on fiscal law issues related to building sustainment capabilities and humanitarian assistance, use of force briefings for troop diversion and increased operations, and international law issues related to movement of personnel and matériel.
• 2022 Nelson Award
The late Gilda “Jill” Mariani, was a former senior investigative counsel for the New York County District Attorney’s Office. Through her many hours of volunteer work for the American Bar Association, Mariani contributed substantively to improving the legal profession. Prior to her death in December 2021, she wrote articles for ABA periodicals, served as a panelist for educational programs and spearheaded efforts to pass ABA resolutions that subsequently became ABA policy. Mariani drafted and successfully advocated for an ABA resolution on the health and well-being of military dogs and more recently, a resolution focused on urging the enactment of laws authorizing courts to allow specially trained dogs to assist victims or witnesses during their participation in the criminal justice system. Her article on the topic of courtroom dogs was featured in the Winter 2022 issue of The Public Lawyer.
The GPSLD’s National Awards are designed to recognize the extraordinary achievements of government lawyers and to inform the public about the outstanding work performed and the positive impact made by our nation’s public sector lawyers. Winners are selected based on their professional accomplishments and their role in ensuring access to justice.
The ABA Government and Public Sector Lawyers Division provides programs, publications and online resources specifically designed for government, public sector and military lawyers, as well as interested law students.
