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Today during oral arguments in Wall v. Kholi, Chief Justice Roberts engaged in this exchange with counsel:

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Why don’t you just call your motion a motion to correct an illegal sentence? Then we wouldn’t have any dispute here, I gather.

MS. MIZNER: Under the State’s theory, there would not be. I did not file this motion.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: You are not one of the stupid lawyers that we were worried about before.  (Laughter.)

MS. MIZNER: I may be in other respects, Your Honor, but not this one.

That’s reassuring.

Back in August, after analyzing Judge Walker’s opinion in Perry v. Schwarzenegger–the Prop 8 case (see here and here)–I remarked:

I am certain Judge Reinhardt will write a much better opinion on appeal.

Lo and behold, Judge Reinhardt will sit on the three-judge panel to consider Perry, and will (most likely) write a much better opinion than Walker did.

With 25 Active and 22 Senior Circuit judges in the 9th Circuit, what are the odds Reinhardt sits on this panel?

Justice John Marshall Harlan I (the namesake of the Harlan Institute) on being in the dissent:

“Of course I am wrong, because only the Chief Justice, and myself held those views, and as the majority decided the other way, we must believe that we were wrong.”

Justice John Paul Stevens on Bush v. Gore, in which he dissented:

” I don’t question the good faith of the people, the justices with whom I disagreed. But I think they were profoundly wrong.”

Stevens also joked about the mistakes of the Court.

“Where does the court make a mistake, in your view?” Pelley asked.

“Well which mistake do I want to emphasize?” Stevens asked.

See also Justice Sotomayor’s comments about being in the dissent, for more context for the Justice Harlan quote.

Remarks available here.

Souter noted:

I don’t have any formal speech to give, but just intend to take the conclusion of this conference as a point for looking back to some personal history, and for looking forward to

making good on what we’ve learned here.

Check it out here. And no, I did not make this page.