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Antonin Scalia

108 bytes added, 05:08, March 28, 2007
Andy, you're a lwyer, you know about modalities of interpretation. I was right, responsivism is common, and if you don't think it should be, tough, it is
Justice Scalia is easily the most outspoken member of the Court, and has been for two decades. He once quipped to the media, "Ah yes, esteemed jurist by day, man about town by night."<ref>http://www.oyez.org/justices/antonin_scalia/</ref> Sometimes Scalia's public commentary causes problems for himself, as when ''pro se'' litigant Dr. Michael Newdow successfully filed a motion forcing Justice Scalia's recusal of himself from Newdow's challenge to the Pledge of Allegiance.<ref>supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/briefs/02-1624/03-7.recuse.pdf </ref>
Justice Scalia is best known for his dissents, when his colorful and forceful style highlights weaknesses in his colleagues decisions. He lambasts the notion of an "evolving" Constitution, known to legal scholars as "responsive interpretation," an underpinning of [[Brown v. Board of Education]]. For example, when the Court held that the Constitution prohibits imposing the death penalty for any crime committed by someone under 18 years of age, Scalia was scathing in dissent:<ref>''Roper v. Simmons'', 543 U.S. 551, 607-08 (2005) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (citations omitted, . emphasis added)</ref>
:In urging approval of a constitution that gave life-tenured judges the power to nullify laws enacted by the people's representatives, Alexander Hamilton assured the citizens of New York that there was little risk in this, since "[t]he judiciary . . . ha[s] neither FORCE nor WILL but merely judgment." The Federalist No. 78, p 465 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961). But Hamilton had in mind a traditional judiciary, "bound down by strict rules and precedents which serve to define and point out their duty in every particular case that comes before them." '''Bound down, indeed. What a mockery today's opinion makes of Hamilton's expectation, announcing the Court's conclusion that the meaning of our Constitution has changed over the past 15 years--not, mind you, that this Court's decision 15 years ago was wrong, but that the Constitution has changed.''' The Court reaches this implausible result by purporting to advert, not to the original meaning of the Eighth Amendment, but to "the evolving standards of decency," of our national society.
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