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Scalia favors 'enduring,' not living, Constitution
Princeton University
by Ushma Patel, Office of Communications
12/11/2012
Excerpts:
In a lighthearted, plainspoken talk at Princeton University, Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia discussed his judicial philosophy of reading the U.S. Constitution on its textual basis and original meaning.
"The fairest reading of the text is what the law means," he said Monday, Dec. 10, to an audience of more than 700 at Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall. "When we read Shakespeare we use a glossary because we want to know what it meant when it was written. We don't give those words their current meaning. So also with a statute — our statutes don't morph, they don't change meaning from age to age to comport with the whatever the zeitgeist thinks appropriate."
Scalia's talk was titled "Reading Law," which is also the title of the book he co-authored with legal language expert Bryan Garner and published earlier this year. Scalia touched on the book in his hour-long talk and question-and-answer session. He declined to express any opinions about controversial cases that may come before the Supreme Court such as the same-sex marriage cases to appear this term, but he defended his rhetorical tone in writing about gay rights cases in a question from a student in an animated exchange.
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Scalia said his book explains his judicial philosophies of textualism and originalism — applying the meaning of the words at the time the document was written when analyzing legal statutes — in detail, and it also provides thorough discussions of the different modes of interpretation that textualists can employ in interpreting legal material.
In the talk, Scalia primarily contrasted his philosophy of originalism with the common conception of a "living Constitution" that changes with society over time. One example, he said, was the issue of whether the death penalty ought to be considered "cruel and unusual punishment" as prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, and as some of his colleagues on the Supreme Court believe.
Scalia George
"There is absolutely no doubt that when the Eighth Amendment was adopted — nobody, nobody, not a single person, thought" it applied to the death penalty, Scalia said. "Nonetheless, my four colleagues thought that somehow it was within their power to say that's what the cruel and unusual punishment clause means today, even though it never meant that. … That is what the living Constitution produces."
The notion of a living Constitution has risen over the last 30 years and has percolated throughout society, with Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas the only originalists on the Supreme Court, Scalia said.
"I have classes of little kids who come to the court, and they recite very proudly what they've been taught, 'The Constitution is a living document.' It isn't a living document! It's dead. Dead, dead, dead!" Scalia said, drawing laughs from the crowd. "No, I don't say that. ... I call it the enduring Constitution. That's what I tell them."
In his view, that issues such as abortion and homosexuality do not appear in the Constitution makes them matters for which citizens and states can enact laws, Scalia said. The tendency to see the Constitution as a living document extends to a tendency to see what one wishes in it, Scalia said.
"If there's anything you absolutely hate, why, it must be unconstitutional," he said. "Or, if there's anything you absolutely have to have, it must be required by the Constitution. That's where we are. That is utterly mindless."
Though it has the illusion of flexibility, the living Constitution creates new restrictions or decisions that must be lived by across the country, rather than laws enacted state by state. And the results are not always liberal or conservative, Scalia said, offering examples of two cases declaring statutes unconstitutional (with Scalia dissenting), one favored by liberals regarding discrimination based on sexual preference, and the other favored by conservatives regarding excessive punitive damages in civil cases.
This morphing view of the Constitution, Scalia said, has two practical problems. The first, he said, is a question of legitimacy; the Constitution does not say that the Supreme Court should decide the "evolving standards of decency" in society, a task better suited to the Congress.
"Why would you think these nine unelected lawyers living in a marble palace have their thumb on the pulse of the American people so that they know what the evolving standards of decency are? I don't know what they are. I'm afraid to ask," Scalia said.
The second argument, Scalia said, is that the text and its original meaning are the only objective standards to which all judges can be held.
..............................................
View the complete article, including images, at:
https://www.princeton.edu/main/news/...9O50/index.xml
Princeton University
by Ushma Patel, Office of Communications
12/11/2012
Excerpts:
In a lighthearted, plainspoken talk at Princeton University, Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia discussed his judicial philosophy of reading the U.S. Constitution on its textual basis and original meaning.
"The fairest reading of the text is what the law means," he said Monday, Dec. 10, to an audience of more than 700 at Richardson Auditorium in Alexander Hall. "When we read Shakespeare we use a glossary because we want to know what it meant when it was written. We don't give those words their current meaning. So also with a statute — our statutes don't morph, they don't change meaning from age to age to comport with the whatever the zeitgeist thinks appropriate."
Scalia's talk was titled "Reading Law," which is also the title of the book he co-authored with legal language expert Bryan Garner and published earlier this year. Scalia touched on the book in his hour-long talk and question-and-answer session. He declined to express any opinions about controversial cases that may come before the Supreme Court such as the same-sex marriage cases to appear this term, but he defended his rhetorical tone in writing about gay rights cases in a question from a student in an animated exchange.
.........................................
Scalia said his book explains his judicial philosophies of textualism and originalism — applying the meaning of the words at the time the document was written when analyzing legal statutes — in detail, and it also provides thorough discussions of the different modes of interpretation that textualists can employ in interpreting legal material.
In the talk, Scalia primarily contrasted his philosophy of originalism with the common conception of a "living Constitution" that changes with society over time. One example, he said, was the issue of whether the death penalty ought to be considered "cruel and unusual punishment" as prohibited by the Eighth Amendment, and as some of his colleagues on the Supreme Court believe.
Scalia George
"There is absolutely no doubt that when the Eighth Amendment was adopted — nobody, nobody, not a single person, thought" it applied to the death penalty, Scalia said. "Nonetheless, my four colleagues thought that somehow it was within their power to say that's what the cruel and unusual punishment clause means today, even though it never meant that. … That is what the living Constitution produces."
The notion of a living Constitution has risen over the last 30 years and has percolated throughout society, with Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas the only originalists on the Supreme Court, Scalia said.
"I have classes of little kids who come to the court, and they recite very proudly what they've been taught, 'The Constitution is a living document.' It isn't a living document! It's dead. Dead, dead, dead!" Scalia said, drawing laughs from the crowd. "No, I don't say that. ... I call it the enduring Constitution. That's what I tell them."
In his view, that issues such as abortion and homosexuality do not appear in the Constitution makes them matters for which citizens and states can enact laws, Scalia said. The tendency to see the Constitution as a living document extends to a tendency to see what one wishes in it, Scalia said.
"If there's anything you absolutely hate, why, it must be unconstitutional," he said. "Or, if there's anything you absolutely have to have, it must be required by the Constitution. That's where we are. That is utterly mindless."
Though it has the illusion of flexibility, the living Constitution creates new restrictions or decisions that must be lived by across the country, rather than laws enacted state by state. And the results are not always liberal or conservative, Scalia said, offering examples of two cases declaring statutes unconstitutional (with Scalia dissenting), one favored by liberals regarding discrimination based on sexual preference, and the other favored by conservatives regarding excessive punitive damages in civil cases.
This morphing view of the Constitution, Scalia said, has two practical problems. The first, he said, is a question of legitimacy; the Constitution does not say that the Supreme Court should decide the "evolving standards of decency" in society, a task better suited to the Congress.
"Why would you think these nine unelected lawyers living in a marble palace have their thumb on the pulse of the American people so that they know what the evolving standards of decency are? I don't know what they are. I'm afraid to ask," Scalia said.
The second argument, Scalia said, is that the text and its original meaning are the only objective standards to which all judges can be held.
..............................................
View the complete article, including images, at:
https://www.princeton.edu/main/news/...9O50/index.xml