His jurisprudence has been overshadowed by that of his showier colleagues but was a model of principled restraint.

Criticism of "activist" judges predates the term and has come from both ends of the political spectrum. Democratic and ...

"Judicial activism largely exists in the eye of the beholder," says Barry Friedman, a law professor at New York University and author on the subject. "One person's activism is another's sound ...

The term judicial activism was coined in 1947 by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. in an article for Fortune magazine. He used it to describe certain Supreme Court justices during the Roosevelt ...