wrote, "to inflict indiscriminate damage whenever he announces that he is acting in his judicial capacity." Concluding, Justice Stewart argued that the majority misapplied the law of the Pierson case: Not one of the considerations...summarized in the Pierson opinion was present here. There was no "case," controversial or otherwise. There were no litigants. There was and could be no appeal. And there was not even the pretext of principled decision making. The total absence of any of these normal attributes of a judicial proceeding convinces me that the conduct complained of in this case was not a judicial act. Justice Powell's dissent Joining in Justice Stewart's opinion, Justice Lewis Powell filed a separate dissent that emphasized what he called "...the central feature of this case - Judge Stump's preclusion of any possibility for the vindication of respondents' rights elsewhere in the judicial system." Continuing, he wrote: Underlying the Bradley immunity...is the notion that private rights can be sacrificed in some degree to the achievement of the greater public good deriving from a completely independent judiciary, because there exist alternative forums and methods for vindicating those rights. But where a judicial officer acts in a manner that precludes all resort to appellate or other judicial remedies that otherwise would be available, the underlying assumption of the Bradley doctrine is inoperative. Legacy The decision has been called one of the most controversial decisions in Supreme Court history. 2007 marked the centennial of the 1907 Indiana sterilization law, the first of its kind in the world. Although Linda Sparkman was not sterilized under any of the eugenics laws still on the books in Indiana in 1971, she was invited to unveil a state historic marker describing the original law on April 12, 2007, in Indianapolis. Indiana repealed all laws concerning sterilization of the mentally ill in 1974. See also Buck v. Bell Skinner v. Oklahoma Absolute immunity Compulsory sterilization Judicial discretion Judicial immunity Judicial misconduct List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 435 Miscarriage of justice References Further reading Law review articles J. Randolph Block, Stump v. Sparkman and the History of Judicial Immunity, Duke L.J. 879, No. 5 (1980) Irene Merker Rosenberg, Stump v. Sparkman: The Doctrine of Judicial Impunity, 64 Virginia L.Rev. 833 (1978) Kessler, Laura T. "“A Sordid Case”: Stump v. Sparkman, Judicial Immunity, and the Other Side of Reproductive Rights" (Archive). Maryland Law Review. Volume 74, Issue 4,