Retired Justice John Paul Stevens showed his sense of humor – and patience – during an interview last night with Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert.

After Colbert expressed disappointment with his team for not securing an active Supreme Court justice to interview, he chided Stevens for failing to take his lifetime appointment literally. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but you sound like a quitter,” Colbert said.

“I am,” Stevens replied. “I am a quitter. After 37 years you’re entitled to quit.”

Speaking about Stevens’ book, “Five Chiefs,” Colbert asked: “Were you upset that you were never one of the chiefs?”

“Well, you know, I was acting chief for a while,” Stevens said.

“Did you go mad with power?” Colbert queried. “You know, ‘Scalia – through the spanking machine!’”

“No I never went that far,” Stevens chuckled.

On the Citizens United ruling, Colbert challenged Stevens’ assertion that, although corporations case considered persons in some contexts, they don’t enjoy all the rights that humans do.

“You don’t have the right to judge the way” corporations do things, Colbert said.

“I think I do,” Stevens replied.
“You do? Why, because you’re a Supreme Court justice?”

“That’s right,” Stevens said.

“Ok. fantastic,” Colbert snarks. “Ok. You’re a Supreme Court justice, I’m not. That gives you the right to judge things. That’s very convenient.”

Colbert’s last question for Stevens: “Are there any decisions you’ve made that you’ve regretted?”

“Other than this interview?” Stevens said. “I don’t think so.”

See the whole interview here.

As another calendar year draws to a close, let’s take a look back at this blog’s most popular posts of the year – for auld lang syne.

5. The Funniest Justice, week 6. When Justice Antonin Scalia is not the funniest justice of the week, people take note.

4. Supreme mistakes. To err is human, but when experts consider the biggest blunders of the nation’s highest court, people like to know.

3. Five years of silence. There isn’t much to say about this post on Justice Clarence Thomas’ oral argument technique.

2. Scalia’s silver anniversary. When the chief justice humorously marks a major milestone for the Court’s most senior associate, it makes a splash.

1. Scalia’s hip-hop culture lesson. We must admit, Scalia’s inquiry about gold teeth was one of DC Dicta’s favorite moments of the year as well. It gives a whole new meaning to oral arguments.

Happy New Year!

DC Dicta will return Tuesday, Dec. 27. In the meantime, happy holidays!

The number of death sentences imposed this year dropped to less than 100 for the first time since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, according to a new report by the Death Penalty Information Center.  The number of executions carried out also declined, according to the group, which attributes the change to the “discomfort that many Americans have with the death penalty.”

“Whether it’s concerns about unfairness, executing the innocent, the high costs of the death penalty, or the general feeling that the government just can’t get it right, Americans moved further away from capital punishment in 2011,” said Richard Dieter, DPIC’s Executive Director and the report’s author.

According to the report, 78 new death sentences have been handed down so far this year. That is a sharp decrease from 2010, when 117 death sentences were handed down, and a dramatic decrease from 2000, when 224 death sentences were imposed.

There have been 43 executions carried out so far in 2011, compared to 46 in 2010 and 85 in 2000, according to the report. Nearly 3 out of 4 executions took place in the South, with Texas leading all states with 13.

Dieter also noted that several states, including Illinois, New Mexico, New Jersey and New York, have abandoned capital punishment in recent years, and other states including California, Connecticut, Maryland and Oregon are exploring the possibility of also ending executions.

DC Dicta is taking a brief recess, but will be back Friday, Dec. 16.

The president has pardoned turkeys Liberty and Peace at the White House, which means it’s time to wish our readers a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

DC Dicta will return Monday, when oral arguments resume at the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a sweeping review that will require 5 1/2 hours of oral argument time, U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide the constitutionality of the individual health care coverage mandate in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

In addition to deciding whether the mandate was within Congress’s authority under the Commerce Clause, the Court also agreed to consider whether the provision is severable from the rest of the law – a decision which could decide the fate of the law in its entirety.

But the Court may not even reach the constitutional question. The justices also agreed to consider whether the challenge to the health care law is barred by the Anti-Injunction Act, which prevents challenges to federal tax provisions before they go into effect. That question could push the constitutional question off until after 2014, when the individual mandate takes effect.

One of the three cases has been allotted a whopping 3 hours of oral argument time. The other two will have 90 minutes and one hour respectively.

Much more on today’s developments to come later on Lawyers USA’s new Supreme Court Report page.

In its only ruling this week, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a per curiam ruling Monday reversing a 9^th Circuit ruling that upended a jury verdict against a woman accused to shaking her infant grandson to death.

In Cavazos v. Smith the 9^th Circuit has reversed the jury verdict in the case, finding that the evidence at trial – which was largely focused on competing expert testimony – did not support a finding that the child died from being shaken rather than from some other cause, such as sudden infant death syndrome.

But six justices of the Supreme Court believed the 9^th Circuit overstepped its bounds, substituting its own judgment for that of the jury.

“Doubts about whether Smith is in fact guilty are understandable,” the Supreme Court ruling stated. “But it is not the job of this Court, and was not that of the 9th Circuit, to decide whether the State’s theory was correct. The jury decided that question, and its decision is supported by the record.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a dissent joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor, didn’t mince words when it came to her disagreement with the Court’s ruling.

“The Court’s summary disposition of this case, in my judgment, is a misuse of discretion,” Ginsburg wrote, saying she would have denied certiorari.

“Beyond question, the Court today reviews a case as tragic as it is extraordinary and fact intensive,” Ginsburg wrote. “By taking up the case, one may ask, what does the Court achieve other than to prolong Smith’s suffering and her separation from her family[?] Is this Court’s intervention really necessary? Our routine practice counsels no.”

As the U.S. Supreme Court returns today for oral arguments in a pair of ineffective assistance cases, Lawyers USA is launching its new Supreme Court Report.

The Supreme Court Report is a one-stop online destination for everything you need to know about the Court, from stories on the latest oral arguments and decisions, to facts, figures and quotes from justices, lawyers and other major players at the nation’s highest court.

Check it out and add it to your favorites.

“It was quite a magnificent and very elegant elephant, and my feminist friends — when they see the photograph of Ginsburg and Scalia on this elephant — they say, ‘Ruth, why are you sitting in the back?’”

~ Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, speaking of an elephant ride with friend and colleague Justice Antonin Scalia during a recent trip to India. (Photo courtesy of the Oyez Project).