The Washington Post posted my column on Sunday discussing the passing of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, a towering figure on the United States Supreme Court and an icon for conservative jurists. It is regrettable that people today often demonize those with whom they disagree. Scalia was personally a warm and engaging person. Indeed, liberal justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan appeared quite close to Scalia as not just a colleague but a friend. I expect that Scalia has left a lasting legacy that will withstand the test of time, as I discuss below. He was a man of principle. One could certainly disagree with those principles, as I sometimes did. However, he left 30 years of opinions that challenged and often changed doctrines in a wide array of areas. These opinions show a depth and scope that sets them apart in the annals of the Court. Liberals and conservatives alike should be able to recognize the impactful and brilliant life of Nino Scalia. Here is the column:
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Years ago, I attended a small gathering honoring a leading Sicilian politician in Washington. Since I was raised in a Sicilian family, I relished the opportunity to talk about Italian culture and food with an animated paisan. As we drank and toasted with Italian wine, one voice constantly boomed above the rest with a “Cent’Anni” toast for everyone to “live 100 years.” It was Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, who regaled the group with his tales and jokes. We all chatted away near an open bay window when security guards approached and explained that the Italian politician had been the subject of Mafia threats and that they were worried about a hit team in Washington. Scalia would momentarily acquiesce, then quickly gravitate back to the window so he could continue to joke and laugh with the group. He was in his element; a possible hit team was not going to interrupt a good story.
Throughout his 30 years on the court, many tried to move Scalia, with equally limited success. As the court shifted to the left and constitutional analysis became more fluid, Scalia remained planted in his spot.
The Supreme Court is known to change people. Some justices, such as Byron White, came to the court as liberals and moved sharply right. Others, like William Brennan, John Paul Stevens and Harry Blackmun, were appointed as conservatives and moved sharply to the left. Scalia stood still. He came to the court with a well-defined jurisprudence that remained remarkably consistent throughout his tenure.
What made Scalia an icon for the right was the clarity and passion that he brought to the court. Like Louis Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes, he was a “great dissenter” who refused to compromise on his core beliefs. He was entirely comfortable being a dissent of one. And he was greatly discomfited by the idea of exchanging principle for some plurality of votes on a decision. In oral argument as well as in his opinions, Scalia was direct and transparent. He was, in a word, genuine.
Ironically, Scalia’s passing comes at a time when the public is craving precisely the type of authenticity that he personified. The rejection of establishment candidates in both the Republican and Democratic races reflects this desire for leaders who are not beholden to others and unyielding in their principles. That was Nino Scalia. Love him or hate him, he was the genuine article. At times, as in the decision in Kyllo v. United States barring the warrantless use of thermal imagery devices by the police, Scalia would break from his colleagues on the right of the court. While many disagreed with his principles, he at least had principles and remained faithful to them from his first to his last day as a justice.
Scalia clearly relished a debate and often seemed to court controversy. It was a tendency familiar for anyone who grew up in a large Italian family: If you really cared for others, you argued with passion. Fights around the table were a sign of love and respect. Perhaps it was this upbringing that made it so hard for Scalia to resist a good argument inside or outside the court. He sometimes spoke on issues involved in cases coming before him, which was ill-advised. He was the arguably first celebrity justice. Ironically, his close friend on the court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has maintained the same type of following from the left side of the bench.
It was an irresistible impulse that likely cost Scalia the chance to become chief justice. That position went to a jurist of a different cut: John G. Roberts Jr. Where Scalia felt compelled to speak his mind, Roberts spent a career avoiding controversial comments or associations. There is no question that restraint can make for a great chief justice. But the directness can make a great justice, too. Indeed, Scalia’s opinions are likely to withstand the test of time because they espouse a consistent and clear jurisprudential view. He was not one to compromise. Instead Scalia waited for the court to form around his position rather than tailor a position to fit the court.
Of course, Scalia’s comments could border on the brutal. At American University, he told law students that he saw little point in selecting students from outside the top schools because “you can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse.” I strongly disagreed with this statement, but I also knew that Scalia was (once again) voicing a view that other justices privately hold yet do not publicly admit. Scalia did not evade such issues; he embraced them. He believed convictions should be tested and defended if they are to be maintained.
What made Scalia persona non grata with many legal intellectuals made him an icon for millions of average citizens. In a city that seems to overflow with doublespeak and guile, Scalia spoke clearly and passionately about the law. He often chastised his colleagues for assuming the position of a super-legislature and denying the public the right to solve difficult social and political issues. He railed against inconsistency in legal theory and the proliferation of different tests by the court to justify its conclusions. He often hit his mark with these critiques: While I disagreed with Scalia about privacy and gay rights, his critique of Justice Kennedy’s new “liberty interest” in Obergefell v. Hodges correctly challenged the majority on a new and undefined right. One could disagree with Scalia and still recognize the extraordinary depth and scope of his analysis. When he had a majority, that depth gave his opinions lasting quality, as with his foundational work on the meaning and purpose of the Takings Clause in Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council.
Scalia resisted the legal indeterminacy and intellectual dishonesty that he saw as a corruption of modern constitutional analysis. He believed that the law was not something that should be moved for convenience or popularity. Neither was he. He finished in the very same place he began in 1986. In the end, he is one of the few justices who can claim that he changed the Supreme Court more than the court changed him.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University where he teaches a course on the Constitution and the Supreme Court.
Washington Post, Sunday, February 13, 2016
Sorry if I offend anyone, but I love this guy. Exposing the lie that was 9/11 on Fox News!! Stop the press!! Who else has the guts to do this?
Trump: All smart people know the Iraq War was a huge mistake
The FBI is investigating his death. Obama will appoint a new puppet to help bring in Globalism.
I hear Scalia considered The Constitution a binding contract. So does CSPOA (Constitutional Sheriff’s and Police Officers Association) Sheriff David Clark. He asks:
“How can you claim to be … a believer in the Constitution, … and not be on the side of the Hammonds?”
SHERIFF CLARKE: ABOLISH BLM; FED GOV’T SHOULDN’T OWN LAND OUTSIDE D.C; PEOPLE HAVE TO STAND UP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJO9SrzpQ-s
He is one of the true white hats; the good guys..in this country.
Scalia’s legacy?
How about the appointment of GWB to the Presidency? How will the legal scholars handle that one? How’s that for Principle?
Ron Hoffman
“…even the President”?
Wait a minute! No mention about the Senate’s Majority Leader who immediately politicized any appointment by saying “no way” would the Senate approve any Obama appointment? How about THAT bs?
President Obama is President (I know, I know, it kills you) until January 20, 2017. Let me know what powers dissolve before that date and where THAT is written in the Constitution. THEN, go look up the appointments of Kennedy and Rehnquist.
Since day one, January 20, 2009, the Republicans have plotted and propagandized the “illegitimacy” of President Obama. They were losers then and they are losers now. To quote Scalia: “Get over it”.
Obama WILL do his job and make an appointment. We all know what the Senate Republicans will do. Let’s see how well that plays with the election.
For those who cannot resist partisan politics even at a time of remembrance and especially for those who cannot eschew vitriol even at the time of a great man’s passing, consider this: the man had 9 kids and (depending on who you listen to) 20 to 36 grandchildren. You think you are rid of Antonin Scalia. He’s got two more generations coming up over the horizon to replace him. The Justice will be around for a very, very long time. He is smiling in Heaven.
I have no critique of Scalia here. He was a good person. His “originalism” comes out of the body of a person whom the Original Framers would not have put on the Supreme Court. The Framers would not have a woman, a black, a Jew or a Sicilian on the Court. So I am glad that he can speak for them when they would condemn him. I liked him off the bench when he was seated with Ruth and yakking.
You tend to write well Mr. Turley and this piece was above normal.
It almost feels like you wrote it some time ago and put it in a drawer waiting for this day to come only taking it out from time to time to polish and update. A good writer does this.
“In the end, he is one of the few justices who can claim that he changed the Supreme Court more than the court changed him.”
Indeed.
:
Although Scalia has been a reliable functionary of the New World Order and has made rulings going against the Bill of Rights at the NWO’s directions, Scalia has at times been a vocal and troublesome SCOTUS justice from time to time. Thus, his dispatch during this Presidents’ Day weekend could not have been more timely, or convenient to the NWO.
In typical NWO fashion, Scalia’s death was officially announced as being the result of “natural causes ” — before any genuine investigation could take place. That is designed to condition the public to not get suspicious, even though the timing and circumstances of Scalia’s death could not be more suspicious, given that Scalia was in otherwise excellent health.
Then, the next NWO priority is to make sure that all evidence is immediately destroyed. Naturally, an autopsy could prove very troublesome when the objective is to destroy evidence. But there are ways to prevent a proper autopsy from taking place. (The NWO certainly demonstrated this in the JFK assassination by illegally moving JFK’s body to Bethesda, MD, where the autopsy could be conducted under total military control by two surgeons who had zero experience in gunshot wounds, and one of them could be ordered to destroy his autopsy notes when a problem arose in them.)
In the Scalia case, someone ordered Scalia’s body to be embalmed in the early hours this Sunday. This was obviously a matter of considerable urgency, as a genuine autopsy without such embalming could potentially identify a chemically induced myocardial infarction, a means of murder well within the capability of NWO operatives. But with Scalia’s body embalmed, a legitimate autopsy has been permanently defeated.
But better not to ask such questions of the NWO and its agenda. Much better to blindly obey. So let us, instead, tell sad tales of the death of kings, pay our respects, and then go along with the official NWO script.
Nice article JT.
To find a reason why journalists (political pundits in particular) are disrespected and given to so much disgust by growing numbers of people, look no further than immediately following the news of the good man’s death when the opinionated horde came out in force from their lairs to salivate among themselves and partake in contentious discord with their adversaries over the replacement of Justice Antonin Scalia. That the subject of his replacement must be implanted front and center in the Nation’s attention before his funeral is all too typical of the pernicious state of journalism today. Even the president, to no one’s surprise, cannot wait to get on with it and has done nothing to temper this harm to morals.
There seems always a rush in America to surpass a time and need for reflection. Why must heedlessness over take contemplation and deliberation succumb to impulse? The Country wants for principles long eroded, leaving unscrupulous leadership to wax and wane while causing a nation to drift aimlessly with too little or no aspiration.
Thank you, Jonathan Turley, for speaking so well of the man and of nothing about him being replaced.
It’s hard not to applaud someone who has held such a high place for so long. Occasionally someone is elected or appointed to high office and they disgrace the position, case in point, the three stooges. Perhaps it is the institution of the Supreme Court that allows Scalia to be applauded and not placed in that unfortunate category of huge mistakes. His bigotry and pomposity was held in check by a balanced grouping of justices that all needed some degree or other of bipartisan approval.
He talked the talk. We can be thankful that more walking did not take place. You don’t have to agree with him to acknowledge his abilities. Luckily he is gone before he can do more damage. Now to the real purveyors of damage, the Republican Party.
Isaac…….glad we have you here to give your usual balanced, evenhanded assessments.😊
Nice Post JT!
Maybe there should be an age limit for US Supreme Court Justices? Due to his health, according to multiple sources, Scalia died of a heart attack, but he had other health issues as well. How can he create any decent judicial rulings with deteriorating health? Or were his aides drafting and/or creating his decisions? Here is an article of how are health, particularly our brain functions, deteriorate over time (enclosed is an excerpt of the article):
http://www.canyonranch.com/your-health/health-healing/staying-healthy/brain-fitness/how-your-brain-changes-age
’60s
The brain has begun to shrink in size and, after a lifetime of gaining accumulated knowledge, it becomes less efficient at accessing that knowledge and adding to it. The greatest risk factor for Alzheimer’s is advancing age, and most individuals with the disease are 65 or older. Surprisingly, when Alzheimer’s hits people in their 60s and 70s, they show faster rates of brain tissue loss and cognitive decline compared to patients 80 years and older, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. Researchers aren’t sure why Alzheimer’s is more aggressive in younger patients, but suspect that people who develop symptoms later in life may have milder cases—or cases that that take longer to reveal themselves.
70s and 80s
Your risk of developing Alzheimer’s increases with age, reaching 50 percent by age 85. Researchers aren’t sure why the risk jumps so dramatically as we get older, but it’s possible the disease is linked to inflammation, a natural part of aging that can lead to a build-up of deposits in areas like the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for forming new memories. These deposits may also interfere with long-term memory. Along with aging, many experts think that genes and lifestyle contribute to the majority of Alzheimer’s and dementia cases.’
On this one point that the Republicans are saying, that the next President should pick the next Supreme Court Justice I agree………President Hillary Clinton nominates ….Barack Hussein Obama
There was some brilliant writing in his early decisions. But I think over the years his bigotry, racism and homophobia got the best of him. Had he been able to overcome these personal failings his legacy would be more absolute and secure. I think now people will read his dissents, especially the later ones, and shake their heads. The Constitution is “dead, dead dead” one minute and not so dead the next. Playing cutsie with the “well regulated militia” idea saying he had no idea what it meant and scurrying to cover his ass.
What a shame really.
Because of decisions made during Scalia’s term on the court, much of the population lost all respect for the Supreme Court….that is the half of the population that didn’t lose all respect when it was the Warren Court.
Scalia was full of so much shit that if the coroner gave him an enema they could bury him in a matchbox!
I admired him like a fixed character in a book. If only human’s weren’t so dynamic his 1950s fantasy would be dreamy – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W_iqw5FMZY
I am with you there Professor Turley as our team @ The Daily Outsider released this last night: http://ordinaryfaces.thedailyoutsider.com/2016/02/notations-on-our-world-special-edition_13.html
Very nicely stated.
BZ.
Let me be the first to say Bravo!