Associated Press
Jurists are generally supposed to struggle with complex legal issues, weighing the subtleties and nuances of the law and legal history, and using their best judgment to reach sound conclusions to tough calls.
But for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, tough legal questions aren't difficult to answer at all (thanks to reader R.S. for the tip).
Scalia calls himself a "textualist" and, as he related to a few hundred people who came to buy his new book and hear him speak in Washington the other day, that means he applies the words in the Constitution as they were understood by the people who wrote and adopted them. [...]
"The death penalty? Give me a break. It's easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state," Scalia said at the American Enterprise Institute.
Mary Elizabeth Williams added, "It takes a special kind of man to shrug off challenges to death penalty and abortion restrictions with nary a care in the world about how his interpretations of text might affect real human lives, and to use the phrase 'homosexual sodomy' in 2012."
Quite right. The ease with which Scalia these draws conclusions is striking, but not surprising. In his mind, if gay people were legally prohibited from having sex two centuries ago, and the right to privacy is a sham, then there's no reason for the Supreme Court to protect those Americans' civil liberties against state intrusion now.
And who's Antonin Scalia? He's the right-wing jurist who, just this week, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) praised as his "model Supreme Court justice."
What's more, if you go to Mitt Romney's website right now, it tells voters, "As president, Mitt will nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito."
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And, if you read the Constitution, nobody thought an accused criminal had the right to testify!
And, if you read the Constitution as written African Americans, then slaves, are to be counted as 3/5s of a person. Slavery was legal for 200 years too, Justice Scalia. If you had it your way it would still be legal???
Scalia is a fraud! He says he is a "textualist" but he can only read the invisible text. Nowhere does the Constitution say that a corporation is a person and yet the Textualist finds it there. Nowhere does the Constitution say that a person does not have the right to privacy. It does say tlhat a person has a right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure. Ah, but that is visible text. Scalia sees nothing wrong with laws that permit unreasonable searches e.g. ultrasound tests on a woman and the patriot act permissions.
I wonder how many of Scalia's views were formulated with the Koch Brothers and Dick Cheney, all good friends of his. If he were not a Supreme Court Justice, he could have ethics charges brought against him, but, alas, he is a SUPREME!
Lets not forget it was OK to beat your slaves as long as they did not die right away. A man could beat his wife as long as he used the rule of thumb, the stick could be no thicker then his thumb, and children, well we don't want to spare the rod and spoil the child do we. Oh and woman you can forget the vote, you will do as your husband tells you after all that's the way it always was before.
There an telling story about Scalia told to me by a reader who knows him. The reader was a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Scalia is friend of his and this reader asked Scalia to officiate at his wedding which Scalia said yes to.
When Scalia went to the Wisconsin bar to get a justice of the Peace licence the clerk at the Wisconsin bar refused to give it to him because Scalia is not licence to practice law in Wisconsin. Scalia became furious and told the clerk "don't you know who I am?!!!!". The clerk replied yes but he still is not licenced to practice law in the state of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice or not.
So Scalia was unable to marry this reader. The reader got a Wisconsin judge to perform the marriage while Scalia stood beside the judge helplessly looking on and probably still miffed at that brave clerk at the Wisconsin Bar Association.
Boy, is that a reliable story! Someone repeated to you a story he'd heard from someone else who knows Scalia. I may be off by one, but I count three story tellers between you and Scalia's described reaction. Any teller in that chain can choose an adjective to describe Scalia's reaction to the clerk, ranging from furious through angry to annoyed, and all of those adjective describe Scalia's emotions rather than his actions. If Scalia shot or struck the clerk, that would be news. If Scalia yelled at or spoke sarcastically to a clerk, why care? If you want to criticize angry Associate Justices of the US Supreme Court, go after William Douglas. He frequently yelled at attorneys from the bench to the dismay of the other justices.
Only Scalia can know what his emotions were then, and Scalia may not now remember the incident. Scalia must occasionally meet thousands of clerks, so he's unlikely to remember each one. A clerk who meets Scalia (or any other celebrity), on the other hand, will remember the meeting for years, and the clerk's story will probably become more and more dramatic with every retelling.
No it was the actual person who knows Scalia moron who told me the story. He was at the Wisconsin Association with Scaliaat the time because the Justice was supposed to perform his marraige for the reader and needed a Justice of the Peace licence for the marriage to be legal you idiot. This is an eyewitness account by a retired literature professor (not a clerk at the Wisconsin Bar Association) who is BTW pretty Conservative. The retired professor (not a clerk)saw Scalia loose it when he didn't get his way. And to be honest I think the retired professor was trying to impress me that he actually knew Scalia and accounted him a good friend.
You should really read things through for comprehension before drawing really silly conclusions.
Not only do you have to read the text literally, but you have to use the mindset of an 18th century colonist. Ugh!
It is a classic bigot's trick to use the prevalence and persistence of bigotry to justify bigotry. Scalia is a bigot and he does what bigots do.
Come to think of it, when those formerly British subjects were drafting Article III of the Constitution in 1787, I wonder if any of them were thinking of Italian justices at the time?
Well, except for some words. Like "arms". Because, clearly, "arms" in the 18th century meant 9-mm semi-automatic handguns.
Wait, wait...Scalia's a 'textualist' who believes that the Constitution doesn't address abortion and the death penalty so 'meh'...where the hell is 'homosexual sodomy' in the Constitution? We have all SORTS of stupid laws on the books that are challenged every day...that's what the Supremes JOB is...
The right really does believe that human civilization stopped progressing, that learning was complete by 1789. And they're determined to get back there.
Remember that "Sodomy laws" use the general sense of sodomy- that is, "unnatural acts" including oral sex between heterosexuals.
For example, before I was married, I could legally have been thrown in jail for going down on my girlfriends in any of the following states: Maryland, Massachusetts, Alaska, Michigan, Arizona, New York, Florida, Alabama, Minnesota, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, or Virginia. (list with citations here)
I find that one of the most enjoyable things in the universe but some men and women consider performing it disgusting. Well tough. As for consenting adults, I think everyone here is in agreement that it is not anyone's fricking business what we do in the bedroom, what people's preferred orifice is, which gender they fall in love with and so on. If people think it too repulsive to contemplate, then exercise some self discipline- don't let your mind go there. If I can keep these rules about imagining acts that Romney and Scalia perform, they can do the same and not exert their imaginations about practices or private realities they can't relate to.
"Il Douche" really is a dick, isn't he?
100% yes. Mitt has no business being anywhere near the opportunity to appoint more judges like this "testualist", a man who benefits from the luxuries of our time, but who presides in a manner that sets other people back a century.
For me, this is the MOST important issue in the upcoming election. Four Justices in their 70's. Presidents have the power to affect the composition of the Court for decades to come.
SCOTUS composition is very important to my mind also. Scalia thinks it's his job to screw the American Public IF that's how the legislation under consideration actually reads (to him). Dum-dee-dum-dum-DUMB.
It's a good thing that the Founding Fathers wanted their words set in stone because otherwise they might have given us a way to amend the Constitution or a Supreme Court to help interpret the document.
Let's take a "textualist" interpretation of what a life term for Supreme Court Justices meant. Then, life expectancy was 50-55. Scalia is way way past that. Arguably, the founders would have found it inconceivable and unacceptable that justices would have quarter century long tenures.
This is why Yale professor of Law Akhil Amar advocated in a Wash Post piece in 2002 that there be 18 year term limits for Justices. There are a number of excellent points he makes, but he speaks best for himself. Reprint available at yale law.
Great point! I am sure Scalia doesn't agree with you in the least.
I'm sure that Scalia would agree that that kind of problem is why they included the Second Amendment.
This is exactly the way many Christians (and probably the fundamentalists of any religion) misuse their bibles: Whatever they agree with is absolute holy writ (roles of women, prohibition of homosexuality), but let's just not talk about the stuff we're ignoring (prohibition of pork, shellfish, blended fabrics, caring for the poor and sick, feeding the hungry,...). What does Scalia have to say about such unspecified but now obvious advances as the end of slavery, universal suffrage, segregation, civil rights, and on and on?
This man is nuts.
What does it take to impeach a Supreme Court Judge?
In this case? More political will than the Rape-Public-CON controlled House is ever likely to muster, and enough Democrats-with-guts in the Senate to convict...
May not be able to get him impeached . . . BUT, since Justices are prohibited from discussing cases & issues which may come before the bench, we should all petition to have him RECUSE himself from hearing cases that involve abortion, marriage equality/gay rights, voter suppression, the death penalty, or ANY OTHER ISSUE he has mentioned!
I totally agree that he should recuse himself. From the way he talks he has already made his decision on the cases pertaining to these subjects without hearing any arguments, considering the rights of people today, or weighing the changes of the world around us. No Justice should be speaking of cses before they come before the court and saying how easy the decision is going to be. This angers and scares me.
I couldn't agree more that he should recuse himself; but there's no way to compel him to do that and damned little likelihood that he'd ever do anything that genuinely principled and ethical of his own accord. Just ask his colleague, "Justice" Clarence "Silent Bob" Thomas...
Easy peasy! Answers to difficult questions are always simple when you're simple-minded.
Romney has Retired Judge Robert Borg as a judicial adviser, this man was nominated for the Supreme Court by President Regan and was rejected by the U.S. Senate. This could be Romney's nominee and God help us if he is.
1. He believes that the First Amendment should be limited to political speech and not
protect, as he once wrote, “any other form of expression, be it scientific, literary or…pornographic”
2. He opposed the landmark civil -rights legislation of the 1960s. He criticized civil rights
legislation on the grounds that government coercion of “righteous” behavior is “a principle of unsurpassed ugliness.”
3. He believes that there ought to be a poll tax.
4. He opposes equal rights legislation for women.
5. Bork detests Roe v. Wade (1973), a decision he says has "no constitutional foundation" and is based on "no constitutional reasoning." He would overturn it and
empower states to prosecute women and doctors who violate criminal abortion laws.
6. He denounces the Supreme Court's protection of both married couples' and
individuals' right to contraception in Griswold and Eisenstaedt v. Baird (1972), declaring that such a right to privacy in matters of procreation was created "out of thin air."
7. . In a 1984 case called Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union v. American Cyanamid Co., Bork found that the Occupational Safety and Health Act did not protect women at work in a manufacturing plant from a company policy that forced them to be sterilized -- or else lose their jobs -- because of high levels of lead in the air. He sided with the Company that they were within their rights to force women to be sterilized or lose their jobs.
I love your typo of Bork's name - yours is so much more accurate!
I apologize it is Robert Bork and I did not recheck my spelling.
You know, as awful as Bork would be on the bench, he would actually be one of the least terrible choices Mitt Romney would be likely make. The man's 85 years old, his tenure on the court would be short. Romney could easily find a nominee just as bad or worse who would be with the court for thirty years or more.
I think the "resistance is futile" is implied.
Liberty University graduates a new class every year, after all. I'm sure that the faculty could suggest several promising new graduates for nomination to the bench.
I liked it before--when Justices at least pretended to listen to arguments before deciding on the cases before them.
Goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway - if Romney is elected, he'll most likely have the opportunity to appoint one or more new justices who will make Scalia look like a progressive.
That's why I am upset with Ginsburg. She's risking exactly that with her age and her health but says she wants to stay on the bench another four years.
Rather than retire gracefully while a like-minded president is in the Oval Office, she is risking her seat, the balance of the Supreme Court, and US judicial future on who may be sitting POTUS for the next four years. Her decision is mind-boggling in its reach.
I honestly think that if Obama is reelected, Ginsburg will retire.
Oh, come on! Take a look at the first state constitutions of the newly free former colonies if you want to see 18th century thought in action. With only one exception, they followed British models. You had to either own a certain amount of land or have a certain amount of money in order to vote, and you had to be even more wealthy to qualify to run for office. Only one new state broke with this pattern; ironically, it was the radical Constitution of 1776 of Pennsylvania, which introduced universal (male) suffrage. Before this radical break with the past, about half of the men in PA couldn't vote. This was 18th century thought at the birth of the United States. Want to go back to that?
You have got to be kidding.
Sounds like Romney would.
On the other hand, Scalia believes the Second Amendment protects access to firearms many times more powerful and deadly than those the Founders had in mind when the Bill of Rights was written.
Given he's such a textualist, perhaps he will find this - from one of the writers of said Constitution, no less! - of interest:
Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.
-- James Madison, Federalist 51, February 6, 1788
So, since there was no Air Force 200+ years ago, does that mean that President Obama is NOT the Commander in Chief of the Air Force? Because after all, it's obvious that the Founders weren't thinking about planes when they spoke about military.
Actually, I think it's the Air Force itself that must be unconstitutional. After all, if the Founders had intended our soldiers to fly, they would have given them wings.
When the founders spoke about military, they meant militias, basically the equivalent of the national guard, "citizen soldiers," not standing armies. And, they had to own their own guns in order to be able to serve in the militia. The 2nd amendment was placed in the bill of rights so that the government could mandate that the soldiers in the militias brought their own guns to fight with.
Of course the original Constitution considered slaves 3/5's of a person. You just know Scalia regrets that not still being the case. As goofy as the right is, could you predict with confidence whether or not Clarence Thomas would agree?
As he ages on the Court, Scalia is not intellectually holding his own very well. With that new study out about marijuana consumption before the age of 18, one can only wonder if Antonin was a regular puffer back in the 60's when he was a teenager! -Kevo
What Scalia might have said after passage of the 13th amendment in 1865 - "We've had slavery for almost 250 years! What's the problem?!?".
Any justice may consider an amendment ill-advised, but once the amendment takes effect a textualist justice will enforce it in subsequent cases. There would be no problem.
slavery? It's easy. Women as property? It's easy.
what a jackass.
I thought judges were not suppose to be political???
An excellent point. The whole premise of judges is impartiality and the application of the law without prejudice. That judges regularly make political statements and mingle with their constituents in social and business affairs refutes that impartiality. I have heard of many cases from lawyer friends of mine who have witnessed judges in social conversations with lawyers presenting cases in their courtrooms having relevant discussions of those cases. Judges apparently are just politicians in black robes.
Like Scalia and Thomas attending a Charles Koch soirée in Palm Springs? How many ways can you say conflict of interest? Citizens United?
Christians should know that in today’s terms, Jesus was a socialist
It's sick that Scalia's rulings are aligned with 200 year old constitution, but he and the other SCOTUS wingnuts have no problem with allowing foriegn countries to contribute vast amounts of money in our elections.
What would the founders of the constitution have to say about that????
Great point, and part of why Justice Stevens' dissenting opinion in the Citizens United case was so powerful.
How can the Supreme Court prevent foreign countries and their citizens / subjects from contributing "vast amounts of money" to the campaigns of either Obama or Romney?
At least Romney returns improper contributions to the contributor. Obama's campaign keeps them.
These cats are in D.C. right? I have always had an idea that they were way out there in the Rocky Mountains, or maybe South Dakota where they have Mount Rushmore. Scalia does look a bit like ol' TR, doesn't he?
Forgive me, they don't teach us that stuff in public school.
I'm not just concern trolling and I'm not trying to be insulting. I am really truly concerned about this guy's mental status. His behavior has been becoming increasingly erratic, his judgment increasingly suspect, and the content of his rulings has become increasingly . . . odd, for the last few years.
And if no one knows how ugly that can get when you've got lifetime tenure, go look up the protracted, sad, sad ending of William O. Douglas's long and distinguished career on the Court.
I guess that means slavery and that 3/5's of a person clause are also no-brainers.....