Sunday, February 14, 2016
Sunday Reflection: Justice Scalia
Today I am giving the sermon at Colonial Church here in Edina at both the 9 & 10:45 services, so I suppose I should be focused on that.
I am not, though. I'm strangely affected by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, a jurist I often disagreed with. There are three things I greatly admire about him.
First, he was often surprising to those who viewed him as simply being a right-wing functionary (that would be Justice Alito). On issues I cared about, in sentencing and criminal law, he often sided with defendants against the government. He wrote the opinion in the case I won in the Supreme Court, in fact. That was Spears v. United States, where the Court ruled that judges could categorically reject the sentencing guidelines' 100-1 ration between crack and powder cocaine and reversed the 8th Circuit. Here is part of what he wrote, in his typically compelling style:
The dissent says that “Apprendi, Booker, Rita, Gall, and Kimbrough have given the lower courts a good deal to digest over a relatively short period.” Post,
at 3. True enough—and we should therefore promptly remove from the
menu the Eighth Circuit’s offering, a smuggled-in dish that is
indigestible.
Second, his faith guided him in much of his personal life. He had nine children, which he referred to as the result of "Catholic Roulette."
Finally, he was a remarkably personable man who often treated those he disagreed with well. His good relationship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg is well known (and a tribute to them both). He was also a mentor to a stable of remarkable clerks, including my collaborator Rachel Barkow. The Observer just reprinted a great reflection she wrote in 2006- give it a read.
He had a passion and love for his job that was visible from counsel table, and I appreciated that. If only we all had that in our vocation!
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Thank you for the wonderful tribute. I very much enjoyed the Rachel Barkow as well. I also loved this from Cass Sunstein: http://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/cass-sunstein-remembers-his-experiences-faculty-justice-scalia
What a loss. What a giant. Ted Cruz was right in saying what Reagan was for conservatives as a president, Scalia was was every bit of that in the judiciary.
And Mark, in processing his death, I could not help but remember Spears (as you mentioned), and think perhaps it was telling that Scalia could so easily combine with Stevens as a matter of principle on that case. Hard not to wax nostalgic when I think about that Court.
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What a loss. What a giant. Ted Cruz was right in saying what Reagan was for conservatives as a president, Scalia was was every bit of that in the judiciary.
And Mark, in processing his death, I could not help but remember Spears (as you mentioned), and think perhaps it was telling that Scalia could so easily combine with Stevens as a matter of principle on that case. Hard not to wax nostalgic when I think about that Court.
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