Precedent Quotations

Judges wear legal professionalism and precedent as a mantel that secures legitimacy for their decisions. It's how they distinguish themselves from politicians or administrative agencies, while wielding power that is sometimes much greater than those democratically accountable actors.

It was a sight surpassing all precedent, and one we never dreamed of seeing.

This, it may be said, is no more than a hypothesis... only of that force of precedent which in all times has been so strong to keep alive religious forms of which the original meaning is lost.

All the networks have always been willing to have ethnic people as the third or fourth lead or the best friend to the white person. But to actually let a black family or an Asian family carry a show, that's something where there hasn't really been a precedent set in terms of a real financial gain.

Surely our inaction with respect to Syria is a poor precedent if we're fighting a war on terror.

Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.

When I won the belt, it was kind of a precedent... The only Canadian to have ever held it.

That past which is so presumptuously brought forward as a precedent for the present, was itself founded on some past that went before it.

My feeling is that the judge has a responsibility to the Constitution first, precedent second. Precedent is one factor. It is not the only factor. If it was the only factor, then, you know, we wouldn't have had Roe vs. Wade. We wouldn't have had Griswold. We wouldn't have had Lawrence. We wouldn't have had all these cases which the Left love.

All I can say is that with business and the interest of any party before me, I will consider and apply the law as it is written by Congress and informed by precedent.

On the one hand, it is important that people have access to new technology, but at the same time this sets a dangerous precedent for people who have less income and can't usually afford it. I would urge people to have great caution about this. We have seen other deals, such as free phone calls and free e-mail, which generally don't succeed because people are concerned about privacy.

One precedent creates another and they soon accumulate and constitute law. What yesterday was a fact, today is doctrine.

Nothing in this case surprises me anymore. This is an unusual turn of events for the Justice Department to come out against the Fourth Circuit like this, because anybody who looks at precedent would see the Fourth Circuit is a very pro-government circuit that generally finds in favor of the government.

Now you have a precedent of the United States actually helping these guys come in from the cold. There's more flexibility.

If this thing goes off with fairly few hitches, it means it could go smoothly in the West Bank, as well. It will create a precedent that Israel, with very little resistance, removed settlers and redrew its borders.

Six justices are sufficient to try this case. There is no precedent for a governor continuing to appoint special justice after special justice until he gets the court he wants.

My last album as J. Tillman, 'Singing Ax,' that was really a premeditated death rattle of the aesthetic precedent I had set. I realized I wasn't creating spontaneously; I was enforcing all these parameters. I was too self-loathing or something, and there was this obvious dissonance between my conversational voice and creative voice.

Sharon created a precedent that could lead to a division of Jerusalem,

Selling off America's natural heritage is not the way to fund government services. This move would set a dangerous precedent for years to come.

She's my hero -- anybody knows that. She had the guts to really do it and raise her family, and she has a high precedent for me. I really love her music and what she stood for.

She's blended with our other athletes to make them better. She's also set a precedent that, if you're going to be good you're going to have to work, you have to get better, you have to be a team player.

Given the Cheney precedent and the president's well-known loyalty to his aides, it's certainly possible the president could turn to Harriet.

I can't emphasize enough that their top players bought into the system, they're working hard, playing well and that sets the precedent for the young kids. No, absolutely not. I think there's nights we do. For the most part, the effort has been there for us. But when we get in trouble, we fade away.

I don't think he wants the tag of America last year as his first victory. So for sure it's the first proper victory of an Aldo Costa-designed car. It's a good precedent for the future.

I don't think we like the precedent of it, and so we're fighting it. I think we're right.

He didn't repudiate what he said (in 1985), ... What he did say is that he has changed since that time over 20 years, and of course the court rulings have also been issued that established the precedent and reaffirmed Roe.

If the aggression will not be stopped, the precedent of such unpunished aggression would sooner or later lead to the aggression against a number of other smaller and medium sized countries. The real question is, which country is next.

If the court finds in Tiffany's favor, this would set a precedent and would place additional pressure on eBay to ascertain the provenance of goods sold.

He has created a precedent that will lead to the division of Jerusalem. My starting (my campaign) here is not coincidental because Jerusalem is in danger.

Historians will look back on this period of time following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita as a defining moment for both our state and nation. To neglect the needs of this vital region sets an unimaginable precedent for America's response to future catastrophes in our nation. Our elected leaders need to see for themselves -- block by block, mile by mile -- the immense devastation, and the pressing challenges faced by so many people in this region.

Hispanics are said to be keeping themselves apart, avoiding the use of English, and declining to absorb on the spot the 'core' Protestant and individualist values that underpin the American way of life ... but precedent suggests that young Hispanics will eventually merge their identity in the larger American one, just as previous streams of immigrants have done.

there is no constitutional or historical precedent for any kind of findings of fact.

Just the fact that a major American city had to be evacuated, there's no precedent for that -- not just in American history, but world history.

Market developments have validated the Commission's concerns. It is vital that the court confirms the Media Player decision because it provides a legal precedent that could be used to prevent Microsoft continuing its abusive bundling practices in future.

Our offense had an opportunity early to set a precedent for the game. Four out of the first five innings we had opportunities to move runners and make contact to score runs, but we didn't do it. We had an opportunity to take some pressure off our defense and pitching and we did a poor job of that.

Our Iraq presence isn't going away; the only thing going away is the people watching how the money is being spent. If you don't have anyone watching it, the precedent is that the money will be wasted.

is to have a dignified hearing which will give insights into Judge Roberts' jurisprudence, and to get an idea of his thinking on questions like respect for precedent ... and his views on congressional authority.

It could set a precedent for other pieces of property in that neighborhood. And other nearby properties are on the market or could soon be on the market.

I think, for me, Julian Schnabel set a great precedent in being able to cross over so successfully. I feel like his artwork is kind of big, grand, and bombastic, yet the films that he makes are very beautifully sensitive, and I just feel that his filmmaking sensibility is very different from his artwork.

It is inappropriate and without precedent to second-guess a pipeline's day-to-day operations,

It is a very dangerous precedent because it gives the court an opportunity to close out the public from critical information during a high-publicity trial, ... This formalizes the celebrity exception to the First Amendment.

Our view hasn't changed. It appears that this ruling sets a powerful precedent that might allow additional banks to enter areas that were prohibited by law in the past. We're concerned there may be other projects.

I tend to take a more practical and pragmatic approach to things, rather than a theoretical or ideological approach, ... But I do think when it gets into an area where the correctness or incorrectness or my agreement or disagreement with a particular precedent is in an area that is likely to come before the court or could well come before the court, I do have to draw the line there. ... My views on the cases that I think are not likely to come before the court, I'm perfectly willing to discuss.

It doesn't really change anything. It's not like people will get their jobs back or their retirement savings back. But I do think the trial is important. It will set a precedent of what's acceptable corporate conduct. Is it OK for executives to do anything so long as it's technically legal?

I think it's a bad precedent to arbitrarily select lands in a hasty manner and trade important public land to buy asphalt to fill potholes on county roads.

I think it's an open-and-shut case. It would be a horrible precedent to set if this is how Congress is allowed to make laws.

We are in seriously uncharted legal territory, ... But there is no precedent for a state winning when BRAC acted lawlessly.

I would like to thank President Goodluck Jonathan for his display of statesmanship in setting a precedent for us that has now made our people proud to be Nigerians wherever they are.

I would like to point out that such a way of dealing with the situation does not constitute a precedent for resolving similar situations in the future,

Will it set a precedent that will see people fight these cases more regularly? Probably not. Is it going to affect insurance premiums? Probably not.

Merck has a precedent of announcing head count reductions and then coming back to the table and cutting even further.

We genuinely believe to this day that it was an honest genuine mistake and we never imagined the punishment would be eight months. The precedent dictated that it was unlikely to be that. We don't regret he played for that period.

Microsoft's biggest concern is the precedent whereby a government agency can dictate what it can and cannot put into its core product.

Well, beyond that, it's settled as a precedent of the court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis. And those principles, applied in the Casey case, explain when cases should be revisited and when they should not. And it is settled as a precedent of the court, yes.

The fact is we are not a taxicab service. If we start a precedent of taking someone anywhere think about it.

We've set a precedent that you've got to step up and match us if you think that you're going to win.

There is a potential for the liability of Medford and the Medford Water Commission. Medford Water Commission can not simply ignore precedent of supplying districts, new or old.

We didn't want to set a precedent where an acquittal is grounds for an automatic reinstatement.

Stability means respecting precedents.

When George Washington threw the dollar across the Rappahannock River, he didn't realize he was establishing a precedent for government spending.

We are particularly excited that such an historic, factual, and truth-based decision is now a controlling precedent for the federal Court of Appeals that rules on all Michigan cases.

We were afraid this would set a precedent and end up nibbling away at our coastline.

The century of aeroplanes deserves its own music. As there are no precedents, I must create anew.

Mastering the lawless science of our law,- that codeless myriad of precedent, that wilderness of single instances.

Is not Precedent indeed a King of men? A Word from the Psalmist.

We've been right all along that Ronnie Earle charged a crime that didn't exist and there's 30 years of precedent that backs that up. We want to get to trial and hope once we do, a jury will find Tom Delay didn't do anything illegal.

We voted for you to vote on these things. This will set a precedent because anything that's done once can be done again.

We should not create a precedent when NATO acts outside the territories of its member-states without a relevant decision by the U.N. Security Council,

We have no precedent to follow on the involvement of the independent counsel in our proceedings. However, it seems both useful and instructive that we should hear from him since he is the person most familiar with the complicated matters the House has directed us to review.

There is no precedent for an extended life span of 25 or more years, and a lot of people feel lost. A good retirement planner can change that.

There is no precedent for this, but there is no question who put this situation in motion. If they did not have their illegal strike, there is no question that this would not have happened.

We're going to take into account the status of the relief and rescue efforts in Louisiana and the entire Gulf Coast and apply league policies and precedents in as much of an extent as possible. NFL teams play their games outside their home stadiums either in another NFL city or in a city in their home territory. There is no precedent for playing any games in a non-NFL city.

We're generally supportive of efforts to make life easier on legitimate marketers. But I don't know if it's a good precedent to set for Internet service providers to charge per message for guaranteed delivery. That doesn't seem like the best way to handle spam.

The people who built the first of these structures had no model to go by, no precedent to use in building a monument. It's a bit like deciding to build a functioning spaceship in your back yard, and succeeding.

Don't use the conduct of a fool as a precedent

What precedent are we setting in doing this for one industry and not for others?

We do not intend to encourage higher courts to consider and possibly create legal precedent that would injure everyday women in the workplace, based on the allegations and evidence of a politically charged case,

It would be wrong for any Legislature to overturn the will of the voters, ... It would be a dangerous precedent ... It would be a constitutional crisis ... To overthrow the will of the people would be such a huge political mistake and such a huge moral mistake.

Think hard down the road to a future administration not occupied by the people we have now. We have to keep that precedent in mind: That gauntlet, if we throw it down, will be taken up by someone in the future that we really don't like and be used against us.

While this case involves the right of Rush Limbaugh to maintain the privacy of his medical records, the precedent set in this case will impact the security of medical records and the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship of every person in Florida.

While this decision sets an important precedent in the trying of defamation cases, it is only the beginning. In order for journalists to be protected from serving jail time, the decision to use the Press Law and not the penal code when involving the media must be used by all Indonesian courts.

While we believe this is a very worthy program, we think it is a bad precedent to have private industry support a federally funded program.

Were the court to sustain the decision below, it would set a precedent that would seriously hamper the very measures drug treatment and prenatal care that promote healthy pregnancies and birth outcomes,

We see real flaws in the method. We're not dealing with a system that has a lot of precedent and has a lot of transparency.

Is relying on foreign precedent and selecting and choosing a foreign precedent to create a bias outside of the laws of this country, is that good behavior?

The right to private property ownership is one of our core freedoms, ... Historically, eminent domain has been used mainly for well served public purposes such as highways or schools, but this decision sets a dangerous precedent for uprooting families simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

What a way for them to go out. I'm also excited for our freshmen because I want them to set this as a precedent for how it's going to be for them for the next four years.

We were only up 3-2 at the time. He didn't set a good precedent for his teammates. He's one of their skill players, a leader in that dressing room, and taking a penalty like that, it puts them behind the 8-ball. You don't see a guy like Daniel Alfredsson doing that, you know - that's a good leader.

There is some precedent here with eBay. They have suffered several outages, some at critical times, without losing a significant amount of customer goodwill.

There appears to be a historical precedent to the Peace and Freedom Party being back on the ballot.

This opinion manufactures jurisdiction that does not exist, ... We have no precedent that supports this rationale for jurisdiction.

Breyer said, ''that certainly looks to text, certainly looks to history, certainly looks to tradition and precedent -- but that also emphasizes heavily the purpose of this particular provision and the consequences as viewed in terms of the purposes, is more likely to get at what this law is about, what area of human life it is seeking to affect and how. That's what I think the essence of law is.

After all the bold talk, it's a slap on the wrist that can be paid with just 7.5 seconds of Super Bowl ad time, ... This decision sets a puzzling precedent by failing to hold all licensees responsible for the material broadcast over their stations. Why announce such a thorough investigation, if we just let some of the stations that broadcast this material completely off the hook?

deferred to Congress, the executive and to legal precedent - in some unspecified mix.

A win tomorrow would separate us from the pack because there are about three or four teams that are dead center right now. We're just preparing to be the best that we can for the postseason tournament. We're just trying to set a precedent for a winning attitude.

That now takes precedent over how you do on the field as a senior.

As an industry we feel it is not a good precedent to fund a government program.

They're weak on the counter attack. They don't defend well when players are going at them. That's what we have to do -- set the precedent and take it to them.

Safety at some point is going to have to take precedent over convenience, but that's some things we're going to have to take a look at, whether we can do the job without really hampering traffic or not.

PRECEDENT, n. In Law, a previous decision, rule or practice which, in the absence of a definite statute, has whatever force and authority a Judge may choose to give it, thereby greatly simplifying his task of doing as he pleases. As there are precedents for everything, he has only to ignore those that make against his interest and accentuate those in the line of his desire. Invention of the precedent elevates the trial-at-law from the low estate of a fortuitous ordeal to the noble attitude of a dirigible arbitrament.