Antonin Scalia: Trending quotes (page 2)

“I have been willing, in the case of civil statutes, to acknowledge a doctrine of scrivener's error that permits a court to give an unusual (though not unheard of) meaning to a word which, if given its normal meaning, would produce an absurd and arguably unconstitutional result.”

Antonin Scalia

U.S. v. X-Citement Video Inc., 513 U.S. 64 http://straylight.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-723.ZD.html (1994).
1990s

Error

“If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,” I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.”

Antonin Scalia

Dissenting (footnote #22), Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, 192 L. Ed. 2d 609 (2015) ; decided June 26, 2015.
2010s

Law , Personality

“How frightening it must be to have your own independent counsel and staff appointed, with nothing else to do but to investigate you until investigation is no longer worthwhile.”

Antonin Scalia

On the independent counsel law: Morrison v. Olson (1988) (dissenting).
1980s

“If you care passionately about something has become the only test to determine if something is constitutional. How passionately do you care?”

Antonin Scalia

Speech at the University of Chicago Law School http://maroon.uchicago.edu/news/articles/2003/05/09/justice_scalia_speak.php (6 May 2003).
2000s

Passion

“Life is too short to pursue every human act to its most remote consequences; "for want of a nail, a kingdom was lost" is a commentary on fate, not the statement of a major cause of action against a blacksmith.”

Antonin Scalia

Holmes v.SIPC, 503 U.S. 258 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=search&court=US&case=/us/503/258.html#286 (1991) (concurring).
1990s

Life , Fate

“But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.”

Antonin Scalia

Dissenting, Maryland v. King, 133 S. Ct. 1958, 1989, 186 L.Ed.2d 1 (2013).
2010s
Context: Today's judgment will, to be sure, have the beneficial effect of solving more crimes; then again, so would the taking of DNA samples from anyone who flies on an airplane (surely the Transportation Security Administration needs to know the “identity” of the flying public), applies for a driver's license, or attends a public school. Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.

Men

“I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial .”

Antonin Scalia

Regarding oral arguments http://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/12-96.pdf, (27 February 2013).
2010s
Context: The problem here, however, is suggested by the comment I made earlier, that the initial enactment of this legislation in a — in a time when the need for it was so much more abundantly clear was — in the Senate, there — it was double-digits against it. And that was only a 5-year term. Then, it is reenacted 5 years later, again for a 5-year term. Double-digits against it in the Senate. Then it was reenacted for 7 years. Single digits against it. Then enacted for 25 years, 8 Senate votes against it. And this last enactment, not a single vote in the Senate against it. And the House is pretty much the same. Now, I don't think that's attributable to the fact that it is so much clearer now that we need this. I think it is attributable, very likely attributable, to a phenomenon that is called perpetuation of racial.

Thinking

“I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that's an outrageous conclusion.”

Antonin Scalia

2000s
Context: Antonin Scalia: It's erected as a war memorial. I assume it is erected in honor of all of the war dead. It's the — the cross is the — is the most common symbol of — of — of the resting place of the dead, and it doesn't seem to me — what would you have them erect? A cross — some conglomerate of a cross, a, and you know, a Moslem half moon and star?
Peter Eliasberg: Well, Justice Scalia, if I may go to your first point. The cross is the most common symbol of the resting place of Christians. I have been in Jewish cemeteries. There is never a cross on a tombstone of a Jew. [Laughter. ] So it is the most common symbol to honor Christians.
Antonin Scalia: I don't think you can leap from that to the conclusion that the only war dead that that cross honors are the Christian war dead. I think that's an outrageous conclusion.

War , Thinking , Dead

“Campaign promises are, by long democratic tradition, the least binding form of human commitment.”

Antonin Scalia

On campaign promises: Republican Party v. White, 536 U.S. 765 http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/01-521.ZO.html (2002) (majority opinion).
2000s

“Robert F. Kennedy used to say, 'Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not?'; that outlook has become a far too common and destructive approach to interpreting the law”

Antonin Scalia

Speech at Catholic University, Columbus School of Law http://web.archive.org/web/20040704015129/http://www.law.cua.edu/News/Things%20That%20Never%20Were.cfm (2004).
2000s

Men , Law , Dreams

“Mere factual innocence is no reason not to carry out a death sentence properly reached.”

Antonin Scalia

These words, which have been widely attributed to Scalia, do not appear in any of his writings or statements. http://www.snopes.com/scalia-death-penalty-quote He nonetheless remarked in Herrera v. Collins (1993, concurring) that state courts had no obligation to review a death sentence on factual innocence grounds, an opinion that he repeated in In re Davis (2009, dissenting).
Misattributed

Death

“The Court today finds that the Powers That Be, up in Albany, have conspired to effect an establishment of the Satmar Hasidim. I do not know who would be more surprised at this discovery: the Founders of our Nation or Grand Rebbe Joel Teitelbaum, founder of the Satmar. The Grand Rebbe would be astounded to learn that after escaping brutal persecution and coming to America with the modest hope of religious toleration for their ascetic form of Judaism, the Satmar had become so powerful, so closely allied with Mammon, as to have become an establishment of the Empire State. And the Founding Fathers would be astonished to find that the Establishment Clause — which they designed to insure that no one powerful sect or combination of sects could use political or governmental power to punish dissenters — has been employed to prohibit characteristically and admirably American accommodation of the religious practices (or more precisely, cultural peculiarities) of a tiny minority sect. I, however, am not surprised. Once this Court has abandoned text and history as guides, nothing prevents it from calling religious toleration the establishment of religion.”

Antonin Scalia

Board of Ed. of Kiryas Joel v. Grumet (1994) (dissenting) (citations and some internal quotation marks omitted).
1990s

Religion , Hope , History , Learning

“If you're going to be a good and faithful judge, you have to resign yourself to the fact that you're not always going to like the conclusions you reach. If you like them all the time, you're probably doing something wrong.”

Antonin Scalia

Speech at Chapman Law School http://lawandordnance.com/oldbrass/2005/08/the_quotable_sc.php (August 2005).
2000s

Faith , Time

“In my view, a right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children is among the 'unalienable Rights' with which the Declaration of Independence proclaims 'all Men... are endowed by their Creator.”

Antonin Scalia

On parental rights: Troxel v. Granville (2000) (dissenting).
2000s

Men , Children , Parent

“It is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today's decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact—and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court's claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776: the freedom to govern themselves.”

Antonin Scalia

Dissenting, Obergefell v. Hodges, 135 S. Ct. 2584, 192 L. Ed. 2d 609 (2015) ; decided June 26, 2015.
2010s

Marriage , People , Law , Imagination

“Bork has essentially given up. I'm not ready to throw in the towel.”

Antonin Scalia

Asked about philosophical ally Robert Bork's urging that Congress override some Supreme Court rulings: Speech to the Anti-Defamation League http://web.archive.org/19990219131611/members.aol.com/schwenkler/scalia/nocontest.htm (May 1997).
1990s