John Paul Stevens served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1975 until his voluntary retirement in 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldest-serving justice in the history of the court. Stevens is known for his majority opinions in landmark cases including Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Apprendi v. New Jersey, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Kelo v. City of New London, and Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency.
About John Paul Stevens in brief
John Paul Stevens served as an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1975 until his voluntary retirement in 2010. At the time of his retirement, he was the second-oldest-serving justice in the history of the court. Stevens is known for his majority opinions in landmark cases including Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Apprendi v. New Jersey, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Kelo v. City of New London, and Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency. Stevens was a registered Republican when appointed who throughout his life identified as a conservative. He married Elizabeth Jane Mulholland in June 1942 and had four children: John Joseph, Kathryn Elizabeth, Susan and Susan D. Stevens died in 2015 following complications from hip surgery. He was the longest-serving Supreme Court justice ever, and was succeeded by Elena Kagan. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and was awarded a Bronze Star for his work in the codebreaking team whose work led to the downing of Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s plane in 1943. He attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools where he graduated in 1937 and Northwestern University School of Law where he received his Jna la laude and J.D. degrees in 1947. He is survived by his wife, Mary, and four children. The Stevens family of Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois, was once one of the wealthiest families in the country, owning two hotels, the La Salle and the Stevens Hotel. The family lost ownership of the hotels during the Great Depression, and Stevens’ father, grandfather, and an uncle were charged with embezzlement; the Illinois Supreme Court later overturned the conviction, criticizing the prosecution.
He also had the opportunity to meet several notable people of the era, including the famed aviators Amelia Earhart and Charles Lindbergh, the latter of whom gave him a caged dove as a gift. His mother, Elizabeth Street Stevens, was a high school English teacher, and two of his three older brothers also became lawyers. Stevens’ mother was a former high school teacher and was a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity, and his father, Ernest James Stevens, was a lawyer who later became an hotelier. He would go on to earn the highest GPA in the school’s history of law and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated with highest honors in 1941. He went on to become a lawyer, co-founded a law firm in Chicago, focusing on antitrust law, and served on the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. In 1970, President Richard Nixon appointed Stevens to the Supreme Court. Five years later, President Gerald Ford successfully nominated Stevens to fill the vacancy caused by the retirement of Justice William O. Douglas. He became the senior associate justice after the retired of Harry Blackmun in 1994. Stevens retired during the administration of President Barack Obama. He died in December 2015 after a long battle with prostate cancer.
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