legal scholar? read on ...

[KBandit]

i found the comments of supreme court justice antonin scalia interesting ... and a bit surprising. but i'm neither a lawyer nor a legal scholar. what's your take?

link here:

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060214101909990004&ncid=NWS00010000000001

p.s., it is an associated press (AP) story, so if you only believe in "mudville gazette" type stories you may as well not link to it.

[KYchris02]

I guess all those silly admendments should never have been added.

JFK said: "Change is the law of life. Those who only look to the past or the present are sure to miss the future."

[nath3an]

The AP article looks to me like a hatchet job that intentionally fails to enlighten the reader on the debate between those who support the idea of a "living Constitution" and those who promote "originalism" (often mistaken for "strict constructionism"). Justice Scalia is a thoughtful and intelligent man; I suspect the quotes in this piece were taken out of context. Note that even though I respect Scalia, I strongly disagree with much of his judical philosophy.

Gerhard, if you have access to an archive of National Journal or Legal Times (through your local library, Lexis-Nexis, or subscription, perhaps), I would be glad to point you to some excellent articles that illuminate these philosophies and their nuanced differences. You could also try browsing the Wikipedia.

Best,
Nathan

[KBandit]

The AP article looks to me like a hatchet job that intentionally fails to enlighten the reader on the debate between those who support the idea of a "living Constitution" and those who promote "originalism" (often mistaken for "strict constructionism"). Justice Scalia is a thoughtful and intelligent man; I suspect the quotes in this piece were taken out of context. Note that even though I respect Scalia, I strongly disagree with much of his judical philosophy.

Gerhard, if you have access to an archive of National Journal or Legal Times (through your local library, Lexis-Nexis, or subscription, perhaps), I would be glad to point you to some excellent articles that illuminate these philosophies and their nuanced differences. You could also try browsing the Wikipedia.

Best,
Nathan

hi nathan ...

i have no doubt that scalia is thoughtful and intelligent but he is a bit too conservative for me, too.

i expect you are right about his quotes being taken out of context. i was looking for the scalia story at other sources and it appears no one has picked it up. seems a very odd statement for ANY supreme court justice to make.

i have web accesss but not subscriptions to those two journals. are subscriptions required?

cheers ...

[selil]

Gerhard, if you have access to an archive of National Journal or Legal Times (through your local library, Lexis-Nexis, or subscription, perhaps), I would be glad to point you to some excellent articles that illuminate these philosophies and their nuanced differences. You could also try browsing the Wikipedia.

Best,
Nathan


Nathan I have access to all of those databases and much more. I've been looking for a real honest to goodness constitutionalist legal scholar. I'd really like to see the links. PM me or email me. Wikipedia has about zero credibility in the world I'm writing for.

[meese]

He may well be intelligent and well spoken, but referring to himself in the third person doesn't tend to support that theory.

[nath3an]

Samuel,

Start with National Journal's cover story from July 23, 2005, "What Kind of Justice?" by Stuart Taylor Jr. While not directly about the subject of this thread, at least half the article is relevant.

If you want to learn about the author, Stuart's bio can be found at http://www.brookings.edu/scholars/staylor.htm along with some of his other writings.

Stuart's on the conservative side, but only occasionally to a fault. He doesn't hesitate to criticize when offended by something like the Harriet Miers nomination or Bush's claims of expanded executive powers post 9/11.

When William J. Brennan retired from the court in 1990, Stuart was on the long list of possible nominees.

You will find that Stuart writes a weekly column for National Journal (which is reprinted by Legal Times) which provides a usually insightful look at current legal events; though with the recent Supreme Court vacancies he's been a bit one-sided recently.

If you find Stuart's article of interest but too shallow, let me know. I can recommend some deeper writings. :-)

Enjoy,
Nathan

[nath3an]

Gerhard,

I just checked the Legal Times site; looks like it's $200/year.

National Journal is considerably more. But in looking around their web site I noticed that the Taylor cover story I recommended to Samuel is avalible for free. Point your browser to

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/0722nj1.htm

Nathan