I didn't know that Brown and Princeton had law schools. Did you?

This is perhaps the most moving tribute to Justice Stevens I've yet read.  From The New Yorker, May 17

Remembering Justice Stevens

by Ian Frazier

During the two years I spent clerking for Justice John Paul Stevens—years I still consider the most memorable of my adult life—I came to know him not only as a brilliant legal mind but also as a human being. The majesty of the Supreme Court affects different Justices differently; weighted by their power and responsibility, some become remote, austere, and unapproachable. That was never Justice Stevens’s way. In all his dealings, he remained the amiable and unassuming person he had been while growing up in the Midwest, and he took a personal interest not only in the clerks who worked for him but in those assigned to the other Justices as well. Any of us who had questions about the law or Supreme Court protocol always knew we could go to him.

One instance of Justice Stevens’s kindness and consideration stands out with special vividness in my mind. It was at the very beginning of my clerkship, when I and all the other clerks (some twenty-six in number, as I recall) received an invitation to a gala event in the White House Rose Garden celebrating the issuance of a new postage stamp in honor of John Marshall, the great Chief Justice and advocate of federalism. The President, Jimmy Carter, was to give a speech, along with members of Congress, the head of the Postal Service, and the Chief Justice (who at that time was Warren Burger). Asking around among my fellow-clerks, I found that we all shared a similar confusion. What were we expected to do at this ceremony? How were we to conduct ourselves? In a condition approaching terminal stagefright, we sought out Justice Stevens and put our questions to him. He reassured us with a friendly smile that made light of our concerns while avoiding any trace of condescension. “Don’t worry, fellows. Leave it to me,” he said. “With the other Justices, I will be standing right in front of you. Just keep your eyes on me, and do exactly what I do.” This allayed our fears, and we promised to follow his instructions to the letter.

The ceremony took place on a mild afternoon in early June. The Marine Corps band was playing, the sun was smiling down, the Rose Garden roses bloomed splendidly. All nine Supreme Court Justices, imposing in their long black robes, stood in a line to the right of the speaker’s platform. We clerks had been placed in two lines just behind and to the right of them. All of us, needless to say, had our eyes glued to Justice Stevens, and observed his every move as the program began. Like him, we assumed an air of polite attention, our hands crossed sedately in front of us. But, for all our watchfulness, none of us saw the small bee that landed on Justice Stevens’s collar and slipped quickly down the back of his robe.

If we missed the bee’s arrival, all of us soon witnessed its consequences. After the invocation, President Carter mounted the podium and launched into a speech about the legacy of Chief Justice Marshall. A few minutes passed before Justice Stevens became aware of the bee under his shirt, just at the base of his neck. In an attempt to dislodge the insect, the Justice raised his right shoulder, then his left. Faithful to our instructions, all twenty-six of us clerks immediately did the same. The tactic had no effect, however, so Justice Stevens repeated it, now moving alternating shoulders up and down more rapidly and jiggling his arms. None of us clerks quite understood how these gestures could be necessary for the ceremony, but, trusting implicitly in our kind mentor, we moved our shoulders and jiggled our arms just as he had done.

The more vigorous gyrations of Justice Stevens succeeded only in shaking the bee farther down inside his shirt, where it found a new foothold on the middle of his back along the spine. The sensation of the bee buzzing in this sensitive spot caused the Justice to shimmy from head to toe. Looking over his shoulder as he shimmied uncontrollably across the Rose Garden lawn, he saw twenty-six clerks shimmying behind him, and in a near frantic attempt to get through to us began to wave his hands back and forth and cry, “No! No! Quit copying me!” We, assuming this was just part of the drill, waved our hands and cried, “No! No! Quit copying me!

The more vigorous gyrations of Justice Stevens succeeded only in shaking the bee farther down inside his shirt, where it found a new foothold on the middle of his back along the spine. The sensation of the bee buzzing in this sensitive spot caused the Justice to shimmy from head to toe. Looking over his shoulder as he shimmied uncontrollably across the Rose Garden lawn, he saw twenty-six clerks shimmying behind him, and in a near frantic attempt to get through to us began to wave his hands back and forth and cry, “No! No! Quit copying me!” We, assuming this was just part of the drill, waved our hands and cried, “No! No! Quit copying me!”

This seemed to frustrate him even more, and he practically shouted, “Listen! I’m really being serious! Forget what I told you earlier! Do not copy what I’m doing now!” All of us clerks had trained at Ivy League law schools, where the importance of carrying out original directions is strongly emphasized. “Listen! I’m really being serious! Forget what I told you earlier! Do not copy what I’m doing now!” we shouted in turn. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that in the confusion the President had broken off his speech and stepped to the back of the platform, where Secret Service agents with drawn guns now surrounded him. Meanwhile, a security helicopter had descended and was hovering threateningly.

Justice Stevens’s career would last many more years, and he would eventually become one of the longest-serving Supreme Court Justices in history. He would write a number of important opinions, and changed some of his views over time—most significantly, those concerning the death penalty. At this defining moment in the Rose Garden, his finely balanced intellect did not fail him, and he came up with a plan to drive the bee out by employing a radical change in temperature, that is, by sitting on one of the many barbecue grills lined up on the lawn’s adjoining banquet area. The grills were already sizzling hot and ready to cook the buffet-style barbecue feast that was scheduled to follow the ceremony.

But the flaw in this idea soon became obvious, for, as he sat, smoke began rising from his robes, until Justice Stevens suddenly burst out with “Ay, chihuahua!” At once, an echoing “Ay, chihuahua!” escaped the throats of twenty-six clerks, all of us on our own grills and all by now similarly singed. The Justice then leaped from his perch and ran pell-mell in a circle through the gathering, trailing smoke and a train of equally smoky clerks, until he, and we, plunged behind first into a moatlike trough containing melting ice and bottled beverages at the foot of a twenty-foot-high ice sculpture of the Post Office eagle situated near the end of the lawn. Upon our contact with the cold water, steam went up, along with a loud sssssssssssss that cut through the background noises of the helicopter and the excited crowd.

After my clerkship with Justice Stevens ended, I went to work for Skadden Arps, in the tort division, but I soon began to drift away from the law. As the result of a long period of reflection and self-examination, I decided to change direction and go back to law school, figuring that it would be easier the second time and I wouldn’t really have to study. This proved to be correct; I regraduated from Yale, then attended and graduated from the law schools of Princeton, Harvard, and Brown. As the possessor of five identical law degrees, I saw that my logical next step should be clerking for a Justice of the Supreme Court. I did not apply to Justice Stevens, however, because after the incident in the Rose Garden we could never meet each other’s eyes. Instead I applied to, and was accepted by, Chief Justice Hulk Hogan. Only many years later did I discover that he was not connected with the Supreme Court at all. For this reason, and for many others, I will always be grateful to have known Justice John Paul Stevens, and vice versa. ♦