ABSTRACT
On August 3, 1994, Stephen Breyer became the 108th justice to sit on the US Supreme Court. Born August 15, 1938, the California native earned bachelor's degrees at Stanford University and Oxford University and his law degree at Harvard Law School, where he also later taught. Justice Breyer's holdings on civil liberties reflect pragmatic centrism. His support of civil liberties is driven by his desire for balance and proportionality. In two Fourth Amendment cases, Justice Breyer authored opinions rejecting civil libertarian arguments. Justice Breyer was more sympathetic to civil libertarians on issues involving the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause, which protects the right of defendants to confront their accusers. In Gray v. Maryland, 523 US 185, he wrote for a majority holding that merely substituting blank spaces for the names of criminal codefendants renders an otherwise unimpeachable confession inadmissible unless the confessor is subject to cross-examination.
