Chief Justice Roberts: Activist Court Spells Disaster
Friday, Feb. 2, 2007

CHICAGO - Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on Thursday told students and faculty at the Northwestern University School of Law that he believes the high court functions best when justices focus narrowly on the case at hand.

Justices run great risks when they go beyond the specifics of the case and attempt to set public policy, said Roberts, a strict constructionist confirmed in his post in September 2005.

"Judges should act like judges, not like statesmen," Roberts said in response to a student question following a lecture at the university.

The talk concluded the first of Roberts' two days as Howard J. Trienens Visiting Judicial Scholar at Northwestern. He noted that the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, for whom he served as clerk, was the first jurist to participate in the program. the rest