Legal News

Scalia: ?I Am a Law-and-Order Guy?

By Dan Slater

We’ll admit it: We at LB headquarters tend to gobble up Justice Scalia’s commentary like rabid dogs. We’d planned to wait till Monday morning to discuss Nino’s upcoming appearance on “60 Minutes.” But with CBS putting out a teaser, we just couldn’t wait.

Scalia’s appearance on Sunday night, partly an attempt to pump up his new book, “Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges,” written with Bryan Garner, will cap a month-long roadshow that’s included appearances at UVA School of Law, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, Roger Williams University law school, and the Food and Drug Law Institute.

While we haven’t seen the entire interview yet, we know Scalia, interviewed by Leslie Stahl, will hit Bush v. Gore, abortion and his relationship with liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“I am a law-and-order guy,” Scalia says. “I mean, I confess to being a social conservative, but it does not affect my views on cases. On the abortion thing, for example, if indeed I were. . . trying to impose my own views, I would not only be opposed to Roe versus Wade, I would be in favor of the opposite view, which the anti-abortion people would like to see adopted, which is to interpret the Constitution to mean that a state must prohibit abortion.”

“And you’re against that?” asks Stahl.

“Of course. There’s nothing [in the Constitution to support that view].”

Scalia, reports CBS, also denies there’s anything personal in his often stinging opinions. Stahl asks how he can be a close friend of Justice Ginsburg, his liberal bench mate, despite the fact that they disagree. “I attack ideas, I don’t attack people, and some very good people have some very bad ideas. And if you can’t separate the two, you got to get another day job. You don’t want to be a judge, at least not a judge on a multi-member panel.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 25, 2008 (boomark / email).