最後的小鎮法官 | 大西洋月刊

天下 06-30

原標題：最後的小鎮法官 | 大西洋月刊

The Last of the Small-Town Lawyers

Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement from the Supreme Court on Wednesday, will almost certainly be the last justice to come from a legal world that has now all but vanished—the decorous, Atticus Finch-style 20th-century life of the small-town, general-practice lawyer, who saw life from many legal angles and formed a bulwark of American communities in all 50 states.

周三宣布從美最高法院退休的大法官安東尼·肯尼迪幾乎肯定是來自現在已經消亡的法律世界的最後一個大法官，那是二十世紀小鎮全科律師彬彬有禮的、阿提克斯·芬奇式的生活，他從不同的法律角度看待生活，是美國所有五十個州當地生活的堅強堡壘。

That background, over the years, produced some of the Court』s most distinguished figures, including Justice Robert H. Jackson, who left his imprint on many areas of the law. Lewis F. Powell, Jr., the last justice to come straight to the high bench from private practice, was in many ways a kindred spirit, the product of law practice in a state capital similar in size and atmosphere to Kennedy』s beloved Sacramento.

多年來，這種出身讓最高法院有了一些最出眾的人物，包括大法官羅伯特·傑克遜，他在許多領域都留下了印跡。小劉易斯·鮑威爾是最後一個從私人律師直接進入最高法的大法官，他在許多方面與肯尼迪經歷相似，都在一個州府所在地做律師得到歷練，其市鎮規模和氛圍與肯尼迪最喜歡的薩克拉門托相仿。

Kennedy』s departure, announced on Wednesday for July 31, definitively turns a number of pages in the Court』s history. All the remaining justices come not from the practicing bar but from the ranks of academia, issue advocacy, and (most importantly) service to the federal executive.

肯尼迪周三宣布將在7月31日退休，這讓最高法的歷史冊翻了好幾頁，剩下的大法官都沒有實踐經驗，他們來自學界和議題倡導運動，更重要的事有人曾為聯邦政府服務。

The change in provenance has been accompanied by a rise in ideology and in the growing partisanship on the Court. That partisanship has been accelerated by the efforts of the Republican Party to annex the Court as an outpost of its partisan control.

出身的變化伴隨著意識形態的興起以及最高法院黨派性的日益明顯。隨著共和黨試圖將最高法院兼并為被其黨派控制的前哨，這種黨派性加速形成。

Kennedy』s farewell will also be the farewell to even the pretense of dispassionate, nonpartisan jurisprudence. Beginning with the fight over his replacement, it will be war to the knife on and around the Court for perhaps the next generation.

肯尼迪告別了，那同時也是向平心靜氣、無黨派色彩的司法作別，即便後者只是一種假象。從對誰接班的爭鬥始，誰主下一代最高法院，要真刀真槍地幹起來了。

Meanwhile, he leaves behind a complex legal legacy that will be debated for decades. A profoundly conservative man, he nonetheless resisted attempts to turn the Supreme Court rapidly in a hard-right direction. His vote in 1992 was crucial to blunting the conservative movement』s drive to overturn Roe v. Wade and preserve a protected federal right to abortion.

同時，肯尼迪留下了一筆複雜的法律遺產，未來幾十年都會爭論不休。作為一個骨子裡的保守派，他卻抵制最高法迅速向極右翼轉向的企圖。他在1992年的投票讓保守派受挫，他們主張推翻「羅訴韋德案」運動，這一票維持了聯邦對墮胎權的保護。

His abiding concern for what he called 「dignity」 led him to write opinions that, at first, only protected LGBT people from outright discrimination, then—seemingly by force of precedent rather than any original design—to recognize a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.

他不變的關切是他所謂的「尊嚴」，這讓他一開始就亮明觀點，只有保護「性少數群體」不受到直接歧視，才能認可同性戀婚姻的憲法權利，看起來他準備通過判例而非任何原初設計實現這一點。

He also resisted efforts to remove national-security matters entirely from judicial scrutiny, and in a series of post-9/11 cases, his vote and voice were crucial in maintaining some level of judicial scrutiny over the detention and treatment of those seized by the U.S. military and held at the U.S. military enclave in Guantanamo, Cuba.

他還反對將國家安全事務置於司法審查之外，在9.11恐襲後的一系列案件中，他的投票和觀點至關重要，得以維持了對被關在古巴關塔那摩的牢房裡的美軍犯人是否被監禁以及受到的待遇進行某種程度上的司法監督。

Anthony Kennedy was born in 1936 in Sacramento, California, where his father, also named Anthony, had a thriving solo practice as a politically connected lawyer and lobbyist. Kennedy himself served as a page in the California legislature. He met Governor Earl Warren there, and felt at home with state politics for the rest of his career. He attended Stanford University and Harvard Law School, then in 1962 began practice with Pillsbury, Madison & Sutro in San Francisco, seemingly bound for a career as a partner at a large big-city law firm. The next year, however, the elder Kennedy died, and his son returned to Sacramento to take over his practice.

安東尼·肯尼迪1936年出生於加州薩克拉門托，他的父親也叫安東尼，是一名政治正確的律師和說客，自己執業，幹得很紅火。肯尼迪本人曾在加州議會打雜。他在那裡認識了州長厄爾·沃倫，此後他的生涯中對州政治了如指掌。他進入斯坦福大學和哈佛法學院學習，1962年在舊金山皮爾斯伯里-麥迪遜和蘇特羅律所執業，看起來志在成為一家大城市律所的合伙人。可第二年，老肯尼迪死了，他的兒子回到薩克拉門托接班。

Over the next dozen years, Kennedy and his wife, the Sacramento native Mary Davis, built a prosperous and by many accounts blissful life in Sacramento. He practiced and lobbied, and became an outside adviser to Ronald Reagan when he became California』s governor in 1966. He also taught constitutional law at University of the Pacific』s McGeorge School of Law there.

接下來的十二年，肯尼迪和他的妻子、薩克拉門托本地人瑪麗·戴維斯在薩克拉門托富足地生活，從許多角度說都算得上生活美滿。他做律師，並遊說政治，1966年羅納德·里根成為加州州長時，他是里根的外圍顧問。他還在太平洋大學麥喬治法學院教憲法學。

His outside work for Governor Reagan brought him into contact with Reagan』s trusted legal adviser, Edwin Meese Jr. In 1975, President Gerald Ford, in part because he was seeking to placate Reagan and avoid a primary challenge the next year, appointed Kennedy to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

他給州長里根幹活，這讓他接觸到里根信任的法律顧問小艾德文·密斯。1975年，吉拉德·福特總統任命肯尼迪為第九巡迴上訴法院法官，部分原因為了安撫里根，避免里根在第二年成為主要挑戰者。

Arriving as the youngest member of any court of appeals at that time, he served there with distinction but no particular fame until 1986, when Meese, by then attorney general of the United States, called to ask him to help then-President Reagan weather a judicial crisis by accepting a nomination to the Supreme Court.

當時作為上訴法院最年輕的法官，他表現出色，但直到1986年才出了名，當時美國司法部長米斯打電話讓他接受最高法院的提名，幫助時任總統羅納德·里根渡過司法危機。

The nomination came because Meese and other hard-edge ideologues in the administration had sought to replace retiring Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. with Robert Bork, a leader of the then-nascent conservative movement in the law.

被提名的原因是米斯與政府中其他頑固派希望用羅伯特·波克替代即將退休的大法官小劉易斯·鮑威爾，波克是當時羽翼未成的保守派運動的領導者。

Bork had alienated some Democrats by agreeing, as Richard Nixon』s solicitor general, to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the infamous 「Saturday Night Massacre」 in which he attempted to derail the federal investigation into the Watergate scandal.

波克疏遠了一些民主黨人，作為理查德·尼克松的副檢察長，他同意在臭名昭著的「星期六之夜大屠殺」中解僱獨立檢察官阿奇博爾德·考克斯，試圖破壞對水門醜聞的聯邦調查。

But more troubling to Democratic senators was the prospect of replacing the moderate Powell with a figure who seemed far more ideological and hard-edged. Because Democrats controlled the Senate, and because advocacy groups mobilized to influence public opinion, the Senate eventually rejected Bork by a vote of 42–58.

可讓民主党參議員更不爽的是用一個思想更極端的人替換溫和的鮑威爾。因為民主黨人控制著參議院，也因為利益團體影響了公眾看法，參議院最終以42票對58票拒絕了波克。

Meese then hurriedly tapped a younger nominee, Douglas Ginsburg, a judge of the D.C. Circuit Court; but that nomination collapsed as well when news reports revealed the Ginsburg had been a regular marijuana user while on the faculty of Harvard Law School. The anti-drug administration, profoundly embarrassed, turned to Kennedy as a qualified nominee who didn』t bring the baggage of either previous choice, and he was approved on February 3, 1988, by a vote of 97–0.

米斯匆忙推出一個更年輕的提名人——華盛頓特區巡迴法院法官道格拉斯·金斯伯格，但提名也沒能通過，因為當時新聞報道稱金斯伯格在哈佛法學院任教時經常食用大麻。這讓主張禁毒的政府無比尷尬，於是選擇了肯尼迪作為候選人，他沒有前兩個候選人的問題，他1988年2月3日獲確認，97票比0票。

The substitution of Kennedy for Bork unquestionably changed constitutional history. Unlike Bork, Kennedy brought the practitioner』s, rather than the professor』s, point of view to bear on the cases that came before him. His passions, the nation quickly learned, were for the First Amendment』s guarantee of freedom of speech and religion and also for the role of the federal courts, and especially the Supreme Court, in what he saw as a harmonious historical pageant of American progress.

肯尼迪替代波克，這毫無疑問改變了憲政歷史。和波克不一樣，肯尼迪把一線律師而非教授的觀點帶到手頭的案子中來。美國很快發現，他熱情捍衛憲法第一修正案對言論和宗教自由的保護，支持聯邦法院的作用，尤其是最高法院的作用，他認為最高法院是代表美國進步的和諧的歷史盛宴。

Where Bork had been suspicious of judicial power to resolve contemporary issues, Kennedy embraced it. Where Bork had proposed an overarching theory—「originalism,」 which sought the historical meaning of constitutional provisions—Kennedy』s method of judging was eclectic. Where Bork had led legal discourse to the right, Kennedy seemed often to be searching for a center that would not necessary satisfy both sides of a dispute, but would not leave either side devastated.

波克懷疑司法權力能否解決當代問題，肯尼迪卻予以支持。波克提出一種包羅萬象的理論「原初主義」，尋找憲法條款的歷史意義，而肯尼迪的判決方法則是折中的。波克將司法話語推向右翼，肯尼迪則總尋求中立，不一定讓爭論的任何一方滿意，但也不至於把任何一方毀掉。

The difference was thrown into sharp relief in 1992. Bork had left no doubt that he believed Roe v. Wade, which recognized a constitutional right to choose abortion, was wrongly decided and should be overturned. When Planned Parenthood challenged a Pennsylvania statute a few years after Kennedy』s rise to the Court, legal opinion on the left and right concurred that Roe』s time had come. Insider accounts from that term of Court, in fact, record that at conference the justices voted 5–4 to reverse Roe and return regulation of abortion to the states.

這種區別在1992年得到了充分體現。波克毫無疑問堅信將有選擇墮胎認定為一種憲政權的「羅對韋德案」判錯了，應該被推翻。肯尼迪進入最高法院幾年後，當美國計劃生育協會反對賓夕法尼亞州法律時，左右兩翼的法律觀點一致同意，判決「羅訴韋德案」的時刻來了。最高法的內部資料記錄，在會議上，大法官以5比4推翻決議，將墮胎管理權歸還各州。

But as the justices labored over their opinions, Kennedy apparently had a change of heart. Late in the process, he switched his vote to join Justices Sandra Day O』Connor and David Souter in an extraordinary plurality opinion that 「reaffirmed」 Roe by rewriting it, changing reproductive choice from a 「fundamental right」 into a 「liberty interest」 that could be limited unless a regulation constituted an 「undue burden.」

但大法官們表述觀點時，肯尼迪顯然改變了心意。後來，在不同凡響的複數意見書中，他投票支持桑德拉·戴·奧康納大法官和大衛·蘇特大法官，通過重寫文本「確認了」「羅訴韋德判決」，將生育選擇從「基本權利」改為「自由利益」，提出除有法律構成「不當負擔」外，這種利益可以受到限制。

The announcement of the surprise result in Planned Parenthood of Southeast Pennsylvania v. Casey marks one of the most memorable moments in modern Supreme Court history, ranking for sheer human drama with New York Times v. United States (the 「Pentagon Papers」 case) and Bush v. Gore.

這一令人吃驚的聲明導致「東南賓夕法尼亞計劃生育協會訴凱西案」成為現代最高法院歷史上最令人難忘的時刻之一，與「《紐約時報》訴美國案」（「五角大樓文件」案）和「布希訴戈爾案」並列為大反轉。

Since Casey, Kennedy has traced a wavering course on abortion, approving some restrictions and rejecting others; in almost every case, his vote determined the result.

凱西案以來，肯尼迪在墮胎問題上搖擺不定，支持其中一些限制，也拒絕了一些，幾乎每個案子中，他的選票都決定了最終結果。

Most recently, his was the deciding vote in Whole Woman』s Health v. Hellerstedt, in which the Court rejected a drastic regulation of Texas abortion clinics that had a proclaimed purpose of protecting women』s health but had little demonstrated benefit—and a harsh and seemingly intentional impact on the number of providers in the state.

最近，他在「全女性健康訴海勒斯塔德」一案中投了關鍵一票，最高法院拒絕了得克薩斯一項有關墮胎診所的極端法律，法律說是保護婦女健康，但幾乎沒有什麼用，顯然就是一種嚴厲且貌似故意限制州內墮胎診所數量的舉動。

Kennedy also maintained a near-religious awe for his vision of First Amendment freedoms. When the Court seemed poised to contract free-exercise rights in 1992, Kennedy put together a majority protecting Santeria worshippers from the 「animus」 of a local government that sought to ban their ritual slaughter of animals; the resulting opinion, Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah, remains a roadmap for judges seeking to distinguish discriminatory religious rules from 「neutral, generally applicable rules.」

肯尼迪對憲法第一修正案主張的各種自由也保持著近乎宗教般的敬畏。1992年，當最高法院準備限制做法事的自由權利時，肯尼迪促成了多數票，保護了薩泰里阿教信仰者免遭當地政府的「敵對反應」，後者試圖限制他們屠殺動物的宗教習俗，而「拉庫米教會訴夏利亞教會案」依然是法官們區分歧視性宗教法則與「中立、可適用法則」的標準。

The same year, in a case called Lee v. Weisman, he held that school officials could not invite clergy to give prayers at public high-school graduations, on the grounds that students, even though not required to attend, would face 「psychological coercion」 to attend and to stand as if observing the prayer.

同年，在「李訴魏斯曼案」中，他主張學校官員不能邀請教士在公立高中畢業典禮上祈禱，理由是學生將遭受參加典禮的「心理脅迫」，儘管並不要求一定參加，且站在那裡好像在做禮拜。

By no means a secularist, however, Kennedy 22 years later wrote for the Court that a New York town』s council could invite clergy to provide explicitly sectarian prayers before formal council meetings. Kennedy dismissed the burden this put on citizens』 religious sensibilities and focused on protection for those of the council members, who had the right 「to show who and what they are without denying the right to dissent by those who disagree.」

然而，肯尼迪絕不是一個宗教宗教與教育分離論者，22年後，肯尼迪在一份最高法院判決中寫道，紐約州一個市政廳可以邀請教士在正式會議前進行顯然只屬於某一教派的祈禱。肯尼迪無視這給對宗教敏感的公民帶來的負擔，而強調要保護那些市政廳的成員，他們有權「表明他們是誰，他們是什麼，這不會否定持有不同意見者的異議權」。

As for First Amendment speech, Kennedy from early in his tenure insisted on it as a near-absolute right. In a little-noticed separate opinion in a case called Simon & Schuster v. New York Crime Victims Compensation Board, he wrote that the Court should stop subjecting limits on protected speech to 「strict scrutiny」 and approving them if they were 「narrowly tailored」 to a 「compelling governmental interest.」

至於第一修正案中的言論自由，肯尼迪上任之初就堅持這是一種幾乎絕對的權力。在「西蒙和舒斯特訴紐約犯罪受害者補償委員會案」中，他沒太被人注意到的意見寫道，最高法院不應對受保護言論的範圍進行「嚴格審查」，不能因為它們「適用」於「令人信服的政府利益」就予以支持。

Instead, he wrote that 「a law is directed to speech alone where the speech in question is not obscene, not defamatory, not words tantamount to an act otherwise criminal, not an impairment of some other constitutional right, not an incitement to lawless action, and not calculated or likely to bring about imminent harm the State has the substantive power to prevent.」 No balancing of state interests—no matter how crucial—was required; the law must fall.

相反他認為，「法律所說的言論就是該言論不淫穢、不誹謗、不等同於犯罪行為、不影響其他憲法權力、不唆使犯法行為、不旨在或可能帶來迫近的危害且州政府有實際權力予以避免」。他不要求平衡州利益，不論後者有多麼重要，法律必須推行言論自由。

Repeatedly he warned that any state limitation on speech, no matter how narrow or how justified, would put society on a path to the 「Ministry of Truth」 in George Orwell』s totalitarian fable 1984. That absolutist position led to his role as the author of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, in which he rejected a federal statute that barred corporations from spending their funds on 「electioneering communications」 within the weeks before a federal election. Corporate speech, he wrote, was as fully protected as the speech of the lonely dissenter, and indeed of great worth to society.

他反覆警告說，任何州對言論的限制，無論多輕微、多有理，都會讓社會走向喬治·奧威爾在極權主義寓言《1984》中的「真理部」。那種絕對主義立場讓他在「聯合公民訴聯邦選舉委員會案」中扮演了如下角色，他拒絕了一項聯邦法案，這項法案禁止公司在聯邦選舉前幾周中將錢投給「競選活動宣傳」。他寫道，公司言論受到完全保護，這和某個孤獨的異議者一樣，對社會有巨大價值。

「On certain topics corporations may possess valuable expertise,」 he wrote, 「leaving them the best equipped to point out errors or fallacies in speech of all sorts, including the speech of candidates and elected officials.」

「在某些議題上，公司擁有有價值的專業知識，」他寫道，「應該讓他們更好地指出各種言論中的錯誤和謬誤，包括候選人和當選官員的言論。」

Citizens United was reviled among liberals, and Casey and Obergefell were hated by conservatives.

自由派咒罵「聯合公民訴聯邦選舉委員會案」的判決，保守派憎恨「「東南賓夕法尼亞計劃生育協會訴凱西案」和「奧貝爾格費爾訴霍奇斯案」的判決。

Kennedy』s role in the recognition of gay rights has been well chronicled. In 1996, he wrote for the majority in Romer v. Evans, which struck down a sharply anti-gay initiative in Colorado. Though the Court had not long before rejected—and indeed ridiculed—a claim that states could not outlaw gay sex, Kennedy』s Romer opinion insisted that a 「State cannot so deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.」

肯尼迪在承認同性戀權利中的角色名垂青史。1996年，他在「羅默訴伊文斯案」中代表多數票法官撰寫理由，這摧垮了聲勢浩大的科羅拉多州反同性戀倡議。儘管最高法院一直否定甚至嘲笑各州不能讓同性戀非法化的主張，肯尼迪在「羅默訴伊文斯案」中給出的意見進一步堅稱「各州不能認為某一類人與其法律無關」。

Romer gave heart to a generation of activists and, in 2003, led to the landmark case of Lawrence v. Texas, in which Kennedy and a majority reversed earlier precedent and held that states could not outlaw private homosexual conduct.

「羅默訴伊文斯案」鼓舞了一代活動人士，2003年，里程碑式的「勞倫斯訴得克薩斯州案」中，肯尼迪與多數法官否定了此前的判例，主張各州不能主張私下的同性戀行為是非法的。

At the time, Kennedy』s colleague Antonin Scalia warned in a furious dissent that the decision would surely lead to the recognition of same-sex marriage; nine years later, in Obergefell v. Hodges, Kennedy read in hushed courtroom for a five-justice majority an opinion announcing that states must recognize and themselves perform marriages between same-sex couples. Many of those in attendance, veterans of a movement undreamed of only a generation before, wept openly as the justice affirmed his vision of 「dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices.」

同時，肯尼迪的同事安東寧·斯卡利亞在一份怒氣沖沖的不同意見中警告說，這一決定肯定會導致同性戀婚姻獲得承認；9年後，「奧貝爾格費爾訴霍奇斯案」中，肯尼迪在眾人屏呼聆聽的法庭上宣讀了五個多數法官的意見，宣稱各州必須承認並在本州接受同性戀婚姻。大法官確認」兩個想結婚的男人和兩個想結婚的女人有結合的尊嚴，並擁有做出重大選擇的自主權「時，許多在場者當眾飆淚，他們是同性戀運動的老活動者，一代人之前，這一做夢都不敢想。

Kennedy』s votes over the years seemed inconsistent to many, but not to him. He seemed to operate on a plane at a slight angle to the ideological reality the rest of America lived in, and always seemed to believe that his work was in the interests of his vision of liberty and dignity.

許多人看來，肯尼迪多年來的投票邏輯並不連貫，他自己都覺得如此。他做事的層次看起來和其他美國人生活的意識形態現實有所差異，看起來他一直相信他的工作符合自己對自由和尊嚴的看法。

In the years since 2008, he seemed to feel that his beloved country had turned away from liberty and toward a nightmare of big government. During oral argument in one of the many challenges to the Affordable Care Act, he asked Solicitor General Donald Verrilli whether the act』s 「individual mandate」 was not 「changing the relation of the individual to the government in … a unique way.」 His invocations of collectivist dystopias seemed to take on an additional urgency in the years since then.

2008年以來，他貌似感覺到他珍愛的國家遠離了自由，走向了大政府的噩夢。在對奧巴馬醫改法案的一次口頭批評中，他質問副檢察長唐納德·韋里利，難道這一法案的「個人強制令」沒有「以獨一無二的方式……改變個人與政府的關係」嗎？他用集體主義的反烏托邦來形容之，這在此後的幾年內看起來尤顯緊迫。

That stubborn thread of libertarianism runs through all his opinions—some heartening, some infuriating, some simply puzzling. It was matched by a thread of decency and an abiding faith in the importance of courts and adjudication to a healthy democracy.

頑固的自由論主張貫穿了他所有的觀點，一些讓人暖心，一些令人憤怒，還有一些只是讓人迷惑不解。但這些主張顯得很正派，他堅定地信仰法庭的重要性，信仰一個健康民主國家做出的裁決。

On the bench, he was direct and ingenuous, and almost always courteous even to advocates whose cases he disliked. Those who met him found him almost uniformly warm and unassuming, still the gentle small-town lawyer he once had been.

在法庭上，他直言不諱，但即便對他不喜歡的人也彬彬有禮。遇到他的人都說他溫和有加，沒有架子，依然是以前那個文雅的小鎮律師。

For the past term at least, he has seemed visibly weary on the bench, and his courtly composure with advocates has turned at least intermittently testy. He leaves at a melancholy juncture for the Court; the events of 2016 have changed the institution he loves and its role in the national life, probably forever.

至少上一個任期中，他在法庭上看起來有點疲倦了，對各方一貫的沉著悠然，不時變得暴躁起來。他在最高法院一個令人悲傷的節點上離開了，2016年發生的事改變了他珍愛的體制以及這個體制在國民生活中的角色，而且可能永遠改變了。

The unprecedented blockade of the nomination of Merrick Garland by Senate Republicans, and the substitution of a hard-right Republican, former Kennedy clerk Neil Gorsuch, have begun to change the Court in ways that will take years to reckon.

參議院共和黨人前所未有地阻撓提名梅里克·加蘭德，並換上肯尼迪曾經的員工、極右翼共和黨人尼爾·戈薩奇，這開始改變最高法院，具體如何還需數年時間才說得清。

There is no doubt whatsoever that Kennedy will be replaced by a much more ideological justice, and that much of his legacy may therefore prove evanescent. The Court』s progress on LGBT rights will almost certainly come to an end; its faint interest in protecting the political process from political gerrymandering will also disappear. The Casey precedent will fall, if not in the coming term, then the next, or the one after that.

不管怎麼說，毫無疑問，替代肯尼迪的都會是一個意識形態色彩更濃的大法官，肯尼迪的多數遺產也會化為泡影。最高法院在性少數群體權利上取得的進步幾乎肯定走到了盡頭；最高法院對保護政治進程不受政治選區變動影響的微小興趣也將消散。「東南賓夕法尼亞計劃生育協會訴凱西案」的先例不會得到繼承了，就算不是下一個判例，也是下下個，或是下下下個。

Overall, the Court will almost certainly take its place among the snarling partisan institutions that joust for power amid the unruly landscape of a divided republic.

總的來說，最高法院幾乎肯定要成為一個混亂黨派體制盤踞之所，任由分裂的共和黨人在無法無天的地盤上爭權奪利。

Though much about his career has appalled and even enraged me, I must pay wholehearted tribute to a man who, arriving at the peak of power without entirely seeking it, managed to conduct himself by following his own lights rather than those of faction or party. His personal decency was matched by his integrity. He was his own man and his own justice.

儘管肯尼迪大部分生涯都讓我震驚、讓我震怒，我必須真心誠意地向這個男人致敬，他達到了權力的頂峰，卻完全不曾謀求權力，他設法按照自己的世界觀行事而非仰派別或黨派之鼻息。他有風度，又正直，他實現了自我，是自己的大法官。

He will shortly turn 82, an age where the joys of family and ease become compelling, and even powerful officials ask whether they want to die with their boots on. He may feel called back to the shadows of the lost small-town life he treasured and gave up to serve his country.

他很快就82歲了，這個年紀更應享受天倫之樂，連大權在握的官員都會琢磨是否要鞠躬盡瘁。他可能感到有必要回到小鎮生活的蔭庇下，那種生活他如此真愛，於是放棄了為國服務。

May his Sacramento summers be long and many.

願他在薩克拉門托的夏日悠久，並多度過幾個年頭。