"Frequently you have a clash between the more sterile letter of the law and the justice that underlies it, and I think one of the things I've been trying more or less, where it was possible, is to go with the justice rather than the letter of the law"
About this Quote
In Greene's mouth, "sterile" is the tell: a judge describing the law as medically clean, technically correct, and emotionally dead. The line is a defense of judging as a moral craft, not a clerical function. He frames the "letter of the law" as something that can be followed with a straight face even when it produces an outcome that feels wrong, while "justice" is cast as the animating purpose the text is supposed to serve. It's a quiet rebuke to a legal culture that can hide behind procedure and call it neutrality.
The subtext is institutional: American courts are perpetually pulled between legitimacy (we apply rules consistently) and conscience (we live with the consequences). Greene signals he knows the danger of sounding like a philosopher-king, so he hedges with "more or less" and "where it was possible". Those qualifiers do real work. They acknowledge constraints: appellate review, precedent, statutory language, the need to look principled rather than personal. He's not claiming the right to improvise; he's claiming the responsibility to interpret.
Context matters because Greene is best known for U.S. v. AT&T in the 1970s, where he mediated a high-stakes conflict between corporate power and government surveillance. In that world, the law's "letter" can become a tool for the already powerful, while "justice" is what keeps a courtroom from turning into a compliance desk. The quote flatters neither side: the law without justice is sterile; justice without law is unaccountable. Greene is staking out the narrow, consequential space between them.
The subtext is institutional: American courts are perpetually pulled between legitimacy (we apply rules consistently) and conscience (we live with the consequences). Greene signals he knows the danger of sounding like a philosopher-king, so he hedges with "more or less" and "where it was possible". Those qualifiers do real work. They acknowledge constraints: appellate review, precedent, statutory language, the need to look principled rather than personal. He's not claiming the right to improvise; he's claiming the responsibility to interpret.
Context matters because Greene is best known for U.S. v. AT&T in the 1970s, where he mediated a high-stakes conflict between corporate power and government surveillance. In that world, the law's "letter" can become a tool for the already powerful, while "justice" is what keeps a courtroom from turning into a compliance desk. The quote flatters neither side: the law without justice is sterile; justice without law is unaccountable. Greene is staking out the narrow, consequential space between them.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
|---|
More Quotes by Harold
Add to List
