"I don't want to be influenced by outside opinion"
About this Quote
A judge admitting he "doesn't want to be influenced by outside opinion" is less a plea for solitude than a declaration of jurisdiction. Harold H. Greene, best known for breaking up AT&T in the 1980s, operated in a job where the loudest voices are rarely the most relevant: politicians posturing, industries lobbying, media narratives hardening into common sense. The line draws a hard boundary between public heat and judicial light.
The intent is protective. Greene is signaling fidelity to the record, to procedure, to the kind of slow, adversarial truth-finding that looks almost perverse in a culture that rewards instant takes. "Outside opinion" isn’t just casual chatter; it’s the ecosystem of pressure that can turn a courtroom into a referendum. By refusing it, he’s trying to preserve the legitimacy of whatever comes next. The promise isn’t that he’s above bias; it’s that he’s choosing which biases are allowed in the room: precedent, evidence, statutory text.
The subtext, though, is thornier. Judges are influenced constantly - by colleagues, by institutional norms, by the values embedded in the law itself. Saying you don’t want outside influence can read as principled independence or as a way to insulate oneself from accountability. In high-stakes cases, the public often wants not neutrality but alignment: with fairness as they define it, with economic anxiety, with moral urgency. Greene’s sentence rejects that bargain. It’s the sound of a system insisting it should be trusted precisely because it refuses to audition for applause.
The intent is protective. Greene is signaling fidelity to the record, to procedure, to the kind of slow, adversarial truth-finding that looks almost perverse in a culture that rewards instant takes. "Outside opinion" isn’t just casual chatter; it’s the ecosystem of pressure that can turn a courtroom into a referendum. By refusing it, he’s trying to preserve the legitimacy of whatever comes next. The promise isn’t that he’s above bias; it’s that he’s choosing which biases are allowed in the room: precedent, evidence, statutory text.
The subtext, though, is thornier. Judges are influenced constantly - by colleagues, by institutional norms, by the values embedded in the law itself. Saying you don’t want outside influence can read as principled independence or as a way to insulate oneself from accountability. In high-stakes cases, the public often wants not neutrality but alignment: with fairness as they define it, with economic anxiety, with moral urgency. Greene’s sentence rejects that bargain. It’s the sound of a system insisting it should be trusted precisely because it refuses to audition for applause.
Quote Details
| Topic | Confidence |
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