We dedicated ourselves to a powerful idea – organic law rather than naked power. There seems to be universal acceptance of that idea in the nation.

A person’s mere propinquity to others independently suspected of criminal activity does not give rise to probable cause to search that person.

The right to defy an unconstitutional statute is basic in our scheme. Even when an ordinance requires a permit to make a speech, to deliver a sermon, to picket, to parade, or to assemble, it need not be honored when it’s invalid on its face.

The right to enjoy property without unlawful deprivation, no less that the right to speak out or the right to travel is, in truth, a “personal” right.

Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself.

Swift justice demands more than just swiftness.

I shall not attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description (of pornography), and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.

Fairness is what justice really is.

We are concerned here only with the imposition of capital punishment for the crime of murder, and when a life has been taken deliberately by the offender, we cannot say that the punishment is invariably disproportionate to the crime. It is an extreme sanction suitable to the most extreme of crimes.

These death sentences are cruel and unusual in the same way that being struck by lightning is cruel and unusual.