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<html> <head> <title>John Paul Stevens</title> <meta name="googlebot" content="noodp"> <meta name="robots" content="noodp"> <link rel="apple-touch-icon-precomposed" href="/silly-nndb-icon.png" /><style type="text/css">  </style></head> <body bgcolor=#ffffff> <center> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr><td valign=top><table width=550 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0><tr><td bgcolor=white><table width="100%" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" background="/nndb.gif"> <tr> <td rowspan="2" align="left" valign="top"><a href="http://www.nndb.com/"><img src="/title.gif" width="260" height="50" border=0 alt="NNDB"></a></td> <td><table width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6"> <tr align="center"> <td width="25%" nowrap>This is a beta version of NNDB</td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="right" valign="middle"> <form action="http://search.nndb.com/search/nndb.cgi" method="get"> <input type="hidden" name="nndb" value="1"></input> Search: <select name="omenu"> <option value="unspecified" selected>All Names</option> <option value="living">Living people</option> <option value="dead">Dead people</option> <option value="bands">Band Names</option> <option value="books">Book Titles</option> <option value="movies">Movie Titles</option> <option value="fulltext">Full Text</option> </select> for <input name="query" value="" size=24 maxlength=96> <input type=submit value="Search"> </form></td> </tr> </table>        </td></tr><tr><td bgcolor=red height=2></td></tr><map name=fool><area coords="102,0,240,14" href="/people/850/000022784/bibliography/" alt="bibliography"></map><tr bgcolor=F0F0F0><td bgcolor=F0F0F0 style="padding: 0px 15px 15px 15px;"><img src="/red-profile-2.gif" align="right" height=15 width=240 border=0 usemap=#fool> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 width=100%><tr><td bgcolor=F0F0F0>John Paul Stevens<img src="john-paul-stevens.jpg" height=350 width=300 align=right hspace=10 vspace=10 alt="John Paul Stevens">Born: <a href="/lists/628/000106310/" class=proflink>20-Apr</a>-<a href="/lists/919/000105604/" class=proflink>1920</a> Birthplace: <a href="/geo/457/000069250/" class=proflink>Chicago, IL</a> Died: <a href="/lists/084/000106763/" class=proflink>16-Jul</a>-<a href="/lists/729/000403517/" class=proflink>2019</a> Location of death: <a href="/geo/515/000069308/" class=proflink>Fort Lauderdale, FL</a> Cause of death: <a href="/lists/328/000069121/" class=proflink>Stroke</a> Remains: Buried, <a href="/cemetery/609/000207985/" class="proflink">Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, VA</a> Gender: Male Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: <a href="/lists/174/000102865/" class=proflink>Judge</a> Party Affiliation: RepublicanNationality: United States Executive summary: US Supreme Court Justice, 1975-2010Military service: US Navy (1942-45)As a young man John Paul Stevens played squash at the game's upper levels of competition. In the Navy during World War II, he was assigned to the code-breaking effort, and awarded a Bronze Star. As a Supreme Court Justice, he usually wore a bow tie. Fresh out of law school, Stevens clerked for Supreme Court justice <a href="/people/872/000180332/">Wiley Rutledge</a>. He began practicing law in 1949, and two years later he formed his own law firm, specializing in antitrust law. By the late 1960s he was well-respected in Chicago's legal community, and he was asked to act as general counsel for a state investigation of judicial corruption. In 1970, <a href="/people/110/000024038/">Richard M. Nixon</a> appointed Stevens to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, where he sat in Chicago and decided cases arising in Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. He was nominated to the Supreme Court by President <a href="/people/400/000022334/">Gerald Ford</a> in 1975, and confirmed by a Senate vote of 98-0. He was generally categorized as one of the Court's most liberal members, and in a 2006 speech, conservative columnist <a href="/people/474/000022408/">Ann Coulter</a> joked, "We need somebody to put rat poisoning in Justice Stevens' cr鑝e br鹟閑." Stevens, though, said "I don't think of myself as a liberal at all," and indeed, he is a lifelong registered Republican. On the Circuit Court his record was clearly conservative, and in analyses of Supreme Court rulings over his first decade on the high court he was generally considered a middle-of-the-road moderate. His perspectives did not noticeably change over the years, but the entire Court shifted to the right with the retirement of several liberals on the bench, and their replacement with conservative and moderate jurists, leaving Stevens as a liberal, but only by comparison to his colleagues. One of the more famous cases during Stevens' tenure was Federal Communications Commission v Pacifica, in which a California radio station was fined for its un-edited airing of <a href="/people/339/000022273/">George Carlin</a>'s famous "seven dirty words" comedy routine. Stevens wrote the majority opinion, upholding the FCC's right to punish the radio station. His logic was that Carlin's naughty language 'invaded' listeners homes, which outweighed the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech. In other cases, Stevens generally supported abortion rights, affirmative action, and <a href="/topics/687/000366586/">Miranda Rights</a>. He opposed random police roadblocks with drug-sniffing dogs, tax funding for private schools, and the Supreme Court's 2000 ruling installing <a href="/people/360/000022294/">George W. Bush</a> as President. In his dissent in Bush v. Gore, Stevens wrote, "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law." He retired at the close of the 2010 Supreme Court session.Father: Ernest James Stevens (hotel operator) Mother: Elizabeth Street Wife: Elizabeth Jane Sheeren (m. Jun-1942, div. 1979) Son: John Joseph Stevens (d. 1996 cancer) Daughter: Kathryn Stevens Jedlicka Daughter: Elizabeth Jane Stevens Sesemann Daughter: Susan Roberta Stevens Wife: Maryan Mulholland Simon (m. Jun-1979, d. 7-Aug-2015)     High School: <a href="/edu/207/000367103/">University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, Chicago, IL</a>     University: <a href="/edu/520/000068316/">BA, University of Chicago (1941)</a>     Law School: <a href="/edu/521/000068317/">JD, Northwestern University (1947)</a>     Teacher: <a href="/edu/521/000068317/">Northwestern University</a>     Teacher: <a href="/edu/520/000068316/">University of Chicago</a>     <a href="/gov/662/000042536/">US Supreme Court Justice</a> (1975-2010)     <a href="/gov/374/000123005/">Law Clerk</a> for <a href="/people/872/000180332/">Wiley Rutledge</a> (1947-48)     <a href="/org/748/000117397/">American College of Trial Lawyers</a> Honorary Fellow     <a href="/org/513/000117162/">Chicago Bar Association</a>     <a href="/org/464/000041341/">Psi Upsilon Fraternity</a>     <a href="/org/512/000041389/">Phi Beta Kappa Society</a>     <a href="/honors/280/000043151/">Bronze Star</a>     <a href="/group/415/000179875/">Funeral: Gerald Ford (2007)</a>     Risk Factors: <a href="/lists/446/000066248/">Prostate Cancer</a> Author of books: Five Chiefs: A Supreme Court Memoir (<tt>2011</tt>, memoir) <table> <tr> <td align=right valign=middle style="padding-right: 5px;">New! <a href="http://mapper.nndb.com/" class="fotmlink" style="font-family: Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; color: #dd0000;">NNDB MAPPER</a></td> <td valign=middle align=right style="border-left: 1px solid #bbb; padding-left: 5px;">Create a map starting with</td> <td valign=middle align=right><a href="http://mapper.nndb.com/start/?id=22784"><img src="/man.gif" border=0 style="padding: 2px;"></a></td> <td align=left valign=middle> <a href="http://mapper.nndb.com/start/?id=22784">John Paul Stevens</a></td> </tr> </table> Requires Flash 7+ and Javascript. 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