John Paul Stevens

John Paul Stevens served on the Supreme Court for nearly 35 years, from 1975 to 2010, one of the longest tenures in its history. He was born on April 20, 1920, in Chicago, Illinois, into a family that owned a large downtown hotel; during the Depression his father was convicted of embezzlement in connection with the hotel, a conviction the Illinois Supreme Court later overturned. He graduated from the University of Chicago in 1941 and served in the Navy during World War II as an intelligence officer, earning a Bronze Star for his work with a team that broke Japanese codes. After the war he graduated first in his class from Northwestern University's law school in 1947 and then clerked for Justice Wiley Rutledge of the Supreme Court.

Stevens practiced antitrust law in Chicago for two decades and gained public notice in 1969 as counsel to a commission investigating corruption on the Illinois Supreme Court, an inquiry that led to the resignation of two of its justices. President Richard Nixon appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 1970. In 1975 President Gerald Ford nominated him to replace Justice William O. Douglas, and the Senate confirmed him 98 to 0 on December 17, 1975. A Republican appointee with a reputation for independent judgment, Stevens over time became the leader of the Court's liberal wing, a shift he attributed mainly to the Court changing around him.

Stevens wrote the majority opinion in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council (1984), which set out a rule of deference to agency interpretations of statutes that stood until 2024, and in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006), which struck down the military commissions the Bush administration had created to try Guantanamo detainees. He also wrote Kelo v. City of New London (2005), which upheld a city's use of eminent domain for economic development. He filed noted dissents in Bush v. Gore (2000), District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), and Citizens United v. FEC (2010). Known for his bow ties, he retired on June 29, 2010, and died on July 16, 2019, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at age 99.