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I?m a Justice Scalia Groupie

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While taking a break from studying for my Wills & Trusts final tomorrow, I listened to the 60 minutes interview of Justice Scalia. I?ve read a lot of his opinions both before and during law school, and I have to say I can?t recall ever reading anything that I?ve ever disagreed with. There it is; I?m an unabashed originalist. I really enjoyed when Leslie Stahl asked him a hypothetical about whether torture in abu grahib would be cruel and unusual punishment under the Constitution. His answer is classic; torture isn?t ?punishment? as defined by the Constitution in that scenario. His torturers are doing it because they are trying to elicit information from him, not punishing him for past wrongs, the latter meaning being the only operable one under the Constitution. Awesome. As Rush Limbaugh said about Scalia, I'd want his brain if I didn't have my own.

When I was interning at the Washington Naval Yard after my first year in law school, there was a lieutenant who had an autographed picture of Donald Rumsfeld in his office. I asked him one day if that was a gag gift, shtick, or did he honestly like the old Sec Def. He grabbed me sternly by the arm and looked me square in the eye and said, with no hint of smile on his face, ?I say the following with the utmost sincerity and candor; Donald Rumsfeld is the epitome of human evolution.? You have to know this particular lieutenant, who is now a lieutenant commander, to know that it was the very best kind of shtick. But I have to say, when someone asks me about my autographed copy of Justice Scalia?s picture hanging proudly one day in my office, I will say, without shtick, that Justice Scalia is the epitome of human evolution.

Full post as published by SoapBox Law on April 27, 2008 (boomark / email).