While driving to work, I'll choose to think about a particular subject rather than just have random thought streams landing on one subject or another. For example, I might think about the structure of an opinion. Or I might think about the first sentence of an opinion, refining it.

Raymond Kethledge

Categorized in : Think Random Work Opinion

In my view, statutory ambiguities are less like dandelions on an unmowed lawn than they are like manufacturing defects in a modern automobile: they happen, but they are pretty rare, given the number of parts involved.

Raymond Kethledge

happen pretty view like

A lawyer who makes an impression as credible, competent, and civil is one whose thoughts I'll take seriously.

Raymond Kethledge

seriously thoughts impression lawyer

Reading a brief filled with ad hominem attacks is like listening to my kids fight, except that I have to wait until we're in the courtroom to tell the attacking lawyer what I think about it.

Raymond Kethledge

wait fight lawyer reading

Among the most serious allegations a federal court can address are that an Executive agency has targeted citizens for mistreatment based on their political views. No citizen - Republican or Democrat, Socialist or libertarian - should be targeted or even have to fear being targeted on those grounds.

Raymond Kethledge

being political serious fear

I would make sure that the values that I would be enforcing if I were a judge are not just my values.

Raymond Kethledge

make judge just values

I won't write about a subject unless I've mastered it.

Raymond Kethledge

unless subject write about

I use solitude as a judge and as a person - a lot.

Raymond Kethledge

person judge solitude use

Analytical clarity is the result of hard, syllogistic thinking, and that thinking has to be done alone. It's not just being physically alone but also alone with your thoughts - not looking at your phone, not hearing the buzz of an incoming text message or email.

Raymond Kethledge

thoughts alone looking thinking

Cell-site data - like mailing addresses, phone numbers, and IP addresses - are information that facilitate personal communications rather than part of the content of those communications themselves. The government's collection of business records containing these data, therefore, is not a search.

Raymond Kethledge

search phone government business

The First Amendment protects the Internet.

Raymond Kethledge

amendment first-amendment internet

In my own opinions as a judge, I have never yet had occasion to find a statute ambiguous.

Raymond Kethledge

judge own never my-own

The lawyers in the Department of Justice have a long and storied tradition of defending the nation's interests and enforcing its laws - all of them, not just selective ones - in a manner worthy of the department's name.

Raymond Kethledge

name tradition justice long

Values that I would be enforcing if I were a judge are not just my values, that I am not striking something down simply because I don't like it. That is a countermajoritarian aspect of our system of government. I would start with the text.

Raymond Kethledge

i-am judge down government

I love to write.

Raymond Kethledge

write i-love love