Quotes by Byron White
“The Court's task is to construe and apply the Constitution and laws of the land as they are, not to legislate social policy.”— Byron White
“The common law is not a brooding omnipresence in the sky but the articulate voice of some sovereign or quasi sovereign that can be identified.”— Byron White
“The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant women and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes.”— Byron White
“I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment.”— Byron White
“The promise of the Equal Protection Clause is not that all persons will be treated alike, but that similarly situated persons will be treated alike.”— Byron White
“The state's interest in protecting the 'potentiality of human life' from the point of conception is not sufficiently compelling to justify overriding the woman's right to privacy.”— Byron White
“The purpose of the exclusionary rule is not to redress the injury to the privacy of the search victim... Instead, the rule's prime purpose is to deter future unlawful police conduct.”— Byron White
“The Court's opinion in my view creates a deep-seated distrust of law enforcement officers.”— Byron White