Legal News

Scalia to Stahl: End of Term ?Usually a Disappointment?

By Dan Slater

While CBS had already released some of the best parts of tonight’s “60 Minutes” Lesley Stahl interview with Justice Scalia (see this prior post), they saved some good nuggets. Here are highlights. (Click here for the full transcript from CBS.)

Originalism a “weird affliction?”

The first half of the interview focused on Scalia’s judicial philosophy of originalism, why Bush v. Gore was not a “political” decision, his contentious (but close) relationship with liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and the importance of society progressing democratically rather than by judicial fiat.

When Stahl asked Scalia whether he would acknowledge that values change and society adapts, he replied: “That’s fine. And so do laws change. Because values change, legislatures abolish the death penalty, permit same-sex marriage if they want, abolish laws against homosexual conduct. That’s how the change in a society occurs. Society doesn’t change through a Constitution.” He added “Sometimes people come up to me and inquire, ‘Justice Scalia, when did you first become an originalist?’ As though it’s some weird affliction, you know, ‘When did you start eating human flesh?’”

First Italian-American on the Court
In the second half of the segment, Stahl accompanied Nino back to the neighborhood where he grew up — Elmhurst, Queens. “I was never cool,” Scalia admitted, when asked about his straight A grades. “I was a greasy grind . . .I don’t like doing anything badly.” Stahl contrasted Scalia’s only-child upbringing with the large brood that’s now the Scalia clan — nine children and 28 grandchildren. “Well, we didn’t set out to have nine children,” he said. “We’re just old-fashioned Catholics, you know? Playing what used to be known as ‘Vatican roulette.’”

When asked about being the first Italian-American appointed to the Court, Scalia said: “I was astounded at the amount of mail I got from Italian-Americans who were so proud. And I think the reason is they have this Mafioso thing hung around their neck. You can have an Italian governor, but he can still be a crook. But an Italian Supreme Court justice, that meant a lot to them. It was a sign of integrity, of honesty, of intellectual accomplishment.”

Term Ends “Usually a Disappointment”

For the Law Blog, the most telling part of Nino’s interview came at the end, when he admitted that, despite his valiant efforts on behalf of originialism, they’ve been mostly for naught. Stahl recalled that a lot of people thought that when Scalia joined the court in 1986, at age 50, he would use his “charm” to bring the other justices around to side with him. “And it hasn’t happened,” said Stahl, citing a letter Scalia wrote to Justice Blackmun during the 1995-96 term in which he wrote that he was beginning to repeat himself and did not see much ‘use in it anymore.’

“That’s true.” Scalia said. “That is something that gives me some concern. I mean after a while, you know, I’m saying the same things in today’s dissent that I said in a dissent 20 years ago.” Though he says it’s been “less dire in more recent years,” he said at “the end of a term, I don’t care what term it is, it’s usually a disappointment.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 27, 2008 (boomark / email).