family and presumably his lawyers. it actually turns out legally to be sort of a fascinating turn in this case so we re going to have more on that coming up this hour as well. like i said, it has it has been a whirlwind news day, particularly in terms of legal news. but just capped with the very sad breaking news that we re just learning this hour that former supreme court justice john paul stevens, who became the leader of the liberal wing of the court in his later years, having initially been appointed to the bench by gerald ford, considering himself a republican excuse me, considering himself a conservative. john paul stevens, a remarkable career on the bench, a dissent in citizens united, the dissent in bush v. gore, the ruling that blocked the execution of the mentally ill, key rulings in terms of prisoners at guantanamo being allowed due process. john paul stevens has died tonight at the age of 99. we ve got much more to get to this hour. stay with us. life doesn t give y sec
he wrestled with that at all. well, he felt very, very strongly about these legal issues and these public issues, and any time you talked to him he was just brimming with ideas and insights. and he actually had a get-together of all of his former clerks just this past may to celebrate his 99th birthday, which was in april, and the publication of his wonderful memoir about his entire life, including in detail his time on the court. and, you know, rachel, to your point, it was very interesting because at that gathering there was a question and answer session, and one of the cleshs sa clerks said, you know, justice, you care so much about the rule of law and the rule of law is under such attack and faces so many challenges these days and what can we do? he looked out at all of us and said, all you can do is do your best every day and fight as hard as you can. and i want to say that while we
he authored approximately 400 majority opinions. he authorized the majority opinion in one of the key guantanamo cases that determined that guantanamo detainees needed to be able to face court-martial rather than being detained indefinitely. he wrote on the dissenting side of bush v. gore. in terms of his overall legacy, it s not just that he was on the court for so long, appointed as a moderate conservative and went on to lead the liberal wing of the court, it s that he was respected so widely by everybody who had anything to do with him. and his legacy was considered to be one of such integrity and thoughtfulness and skill on the bench that it s hard to imagine there ever being another justice like him. president gerald ford, who nominated justice stevens to the bench, famously wrote in 2005 that he would let history s judgement of his entire
also today in federal court in new york, the judge who has initially blocked the trump administration from messing with the census, to try to use the census to engineer an undercount of latinos in immigrant communities, that new york federal judge today permanently enjoined the trump administration from even trying to use the census in that way. after many lower court rulings and a supreme court ruling, the trump administration and ultimately the president himself had to admit defeat in the courts on this issue, but just in case there was any doubt, federal court district judge in new york who ruled against the administration on this today issued a permanent injunction barring them from even trying it, and a maryland judge who issued a similar ruling is being asked by the plaintiffs in that case to dot same. it s a sort of belt and suspenders thing right now in terms of whether or not the trump administration is going to try to change the census. tomorrow the head of the agency that ru
she would change the terms of his release, that he might say, all right, you re going to wait for your trial in jail since you can t follow the rules of this court. was that a reasonable expectation or was this a more likely outcome, what we saw today? no, i think that s a reasonable expectation. she has been infinitely patient. rachel, for more context, if you recall, and i know you do, one of the things that stone is charged with is witness tampering. he told a witness to prepare to die. that alone could be enough, should be enough, often would be enough to get someone, you know, detained pending trial. why do you think the judge is erring in the side of sort of leniency? it was striking that the prosecutors in this case today didn t explicitly asked judge to confine to confine stone. they didn t ask for any punishment whatsoever. they simply seemed to be directing the judge to further restrict his speech. it may have been that the government expected that she would after thr