Antonin Scalia Quotes (100 quotes, page 2)

“The operation was a success, but the patient died.' What such a procedure is to medicine, the Court's opinion in this case is to law.”

Antonin Scalia

National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569 (1998) (Scalia, concurring).
1990s

Law , Success

“Frequently an issue of this sort will come before the Court clad, so to speak, in sheep's clothing: the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of power is not immediately evident, and must be discerned by a careful and perceptive analysis. But this wolf comes as a wolf.”

Antonin Scalia

Morrison v. Olsen, 487 U.S. 654, 699 (1988) (dissenting).
1980s

Wolf , Change , Clothes

“Avant-garde artistes such as respondents remain entirely free to é pater les bourgeois [shock the middle classes]; they are merely deprived of the additional satisfaction of having the bourgeoisie taxed to pay for it. It is preposterous to equate the denial of taxpayer subsidy with measures 'aimed at the suppression of dangerous ideas.”

Antonin Scalia

On tax-funded art: National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley (1998) (concurring).
1990s

Idea

“Humanity has been around for at least some 5,000 years or so, and I doubt that the basic challenges it has confronted are any worse now, or, alas, even much different, from what they ever were.”

Antonin Scalia

Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart graduation commencement speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJSOOYx6wYM, .
2010s

“As I understand the various opinions today: One Justice holds that two-parent notification is unconstitutional (at least in present circumstances) without judicial bypass, but constitutional with bypass […]; four Justices would hold that two-parent notification is constitutional with or without bypass […]; four Justices would hold that two-parent notification is unconstitutional with or without bypass, though the four apply two different standards […]; six Justices hold that one-parent notification with bypass is constitutional, though for two different sets of reasons […]; and three Justices would hold that one-parent notification with bypass is unconstitutional […]. One will search in vain the document we are supposed to be construing for text that provides the basis for the argument over these distinctions and will find in our society’s tradition regarding abortion no hint that the distinctions are constitutionally relevant, much less any indication how a constitutional argument about them ought to be resolved. The random and unpredictable results of our consequently unchanneled individual views make it increasingly evident, Term after Term, that the tools for this job are not to be found in the lawyer’s – and hence not in the judges – workbox. I continue to dissent from this enterprise of devising an Abortion Code, and from the illusion that we have authority to do so.”

Antonin Scalia

On whether a state law may require notification of both parents before a minor can obtain an abortion; Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990, concurring in the judgment and dissenting in part), 497 U.S. 417 http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/497/417.html, No. 88-605 ; decided June 25, 1990
1990s

Justice , Search , Understanding , Parent

“I believe that our people’s traditional belief in the right of trial by jury is in perilous decline. That decline is bound to be confirmed, and indeed accelerated, by the repeated spectacle of a man’s going to his death because a judge found that an aggravating factor existed. We cannot preserve our veneration for the protection of the jury in criminal cases if we render ourselves callous to the need for that protection by regularly imposing the death penalty without it.”

Antonin Scalia

Ring v. Arizona (2006) (concurring).
2000s

Death , People , Penalty

“To tell you the truth there is no place for that in our constitutional tradition. Where did that come from? To be sure, you can't favor one denomination over another but can't favor religion over non-religion?”

Antonin Scalia

2010s

Truth , Religion

“As Justice Stevens explains, “ ‘objective evidence, though of great importance, [does] not wholly determine the controversy, for the Constitution contemplates that in the end our own judgment will be brought to bear on the question of the acceptability of the death penalty under the Eighth Amendment.’ ” (quoting Atkins v. Virginia). “I have relied on my own experience in reaching the conclusion that the imposition of the death penalty” Purer expression cannot be found of the principle of rule by judicial fiat. In the face of Justice Stevens’ experience, the experience of all others is, it appears, of little consequence. The experience of the state legislatures and the Congress—who retain the death penalty as a form of punishment—is dismissed as “the product of habit and inattention rather than an acceptable deliberative process.” The experience of social scientists whose studies indicate that the death penalty deters crime is relegated to a footnote. The experience of fellow citizens who support the death penalty is described, with only the most thinly veiled condemnation, as stemming from a “thirst for vengeance.””

Antonin Scalia

It is Justice Stevens’ experience that reigns over all.
Baze v. Rees (2008) (concurring).
2000s

Death , Justice , Penalty , Quotes

“Textualism should not be confused with so-called strict constructionism, which is a degraded form of textualism that brings the whole philosophy into disrepute. I am not a strict constructionist, and no one ought to be--though better that, I suppose, than a nontextualist. A text should not be construed strictly, and it should not be construed leniently; it should be construed reasonably, to contain all that it fairly means.”

Antonin Scalia

Antonin Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation 23 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998). http://web.archive.org/web/20060911103004/http://www.tannerlectures.utah.edu/lectures/scalia97.pdf (PDF).
1990s

“People look at rights as if they were muscles — the more you exercise them, the better they get.”

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

People , Exercises

“I think it is up to the judge to say what the Constitution provided, even if what it provided is not the best answer, even if you think it should be amended. If that's what it says, that's what it says.”

Antonin Scalia

Forum at American University http://domino.american.edu/AU/media/mediarel.nsf/1D265343BDC2189785256B810071F238/1F2F7DC4757FD01E85256F890068E6E0?OpenDocument (2005).
2000s

Thinking

“If to state this case is not to decide it, the law has departed further from the meaning of language than is appropriate for a government that is supposed to rule (and to be restrained) through the written word.”

Antonin Scalia

United States v. Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. 275 (1998) (Scalia, dissenting).
1990s

Law

“My difficulty with Roe v. Wade is a legal rather than a moral one. I do not believe – and no one believed for 200 years – that the Constitution contains a right to abortion. And if a state were to permit abortion on demand, I would and could in good conscience vote against an attempt to invalidate that law, for the same reason that I vote against invalidation of laws that contradict Roe v. Wade; namely, simply because the Constitution gives the federal government and, hence, me no power over the matter.”

Antonin Scalia

Call for Reckoning http://pewforum.org/deathpenalty/resources/transcript3.php3 - Pew Forum conference (25 January 2002). N.b. this speech was later modified into an article - God's Justice and Ours http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/gods-justice-and-ours-32 which repeats much the same points.
2000s

Law

“Many think it not only inevitable but entirely proper that liberty give way to security in times of national crisis--that, at the extremes of military exigency, inter arma silent leges. Whatever the general merits of the view that war silences law or modulates its voice, that view has no place in the interpretation and application of a Constitution designed precisely to confront war and, in a manner that accords with democratic principles, to accommodate it.”

Antonin Scalia

On civil rights and the Global War on Terrorism: Hamdi v. Rumsfeld (2004) (dissenting).
2000s

War , Law , Way , Thinking

“We Americans have a method for making the laws that are over us. We elect representatives to two Houses of Congress, each of which must enact the new law and present it for the approval of a President, whom we also elect. For over two decades now, unelected federal judges have been usurping this lawmaking power by converting what they regard as norms of international law into American law. Today's opinion approves that process in principle, though urging the lower courts to be more restrained. This Court seems incapable of admitting that some matters - any matters - are none of its business.”

Antonin Scalia

Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain et al., 542 U. S. 692 (2004) (concurring in part and concurring in judgment).
2000s

Law , Business , Housing

“Perhaps the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will attain the enduring status of the Social Security Act or the Taft-Hartley Act; perhaps not. But this Court’s two decisions on the Act will surely be remembered through the years. The somersaults of statutory interpretation they have performed (“penalty” means tax, “further [Medicaid] payments to the State” means only incremental Medicaid payments to the State, “established by the State” means not established by the State) will be cited by litigants endlessly, to the confusion of honest jurisprudence. And the cases will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites.”

Antonin Scalia

Dissenting, King v, Burwell, 576 U.S. ___ (2015) ; decided June 25, 2015.
2010s

Truth , Law , Penalty , Decision

“Evidently, the governing standard is to be what might be called the unfettered wisdom of a majority of this Court, revealed to an obedient people on a case-by-case basis.”

Antonin Scalia

On legislating from the bench: Morrison v. Olson, 487 U.S. 654 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=487&invol=654 (1988) (dissenting).
1980s

Wisdom , People

“The Court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our Nation's moral standards—and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures. Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent. Words have no meaning if the views of less than 50 percent of death penalty States can constitute a national consensus. Our previous cases have required overwhelming opposition to a challenged practice, generally over a long period of time.”

Antonin Scalia

On executing minors: Roper v. Simmons (2005) (dissenting).
2000s

Death , Penalty , Time

“Winning and losing, that's never been my objective. It's my hope that in the fullness of time, the majority of the court will is come to see things as I do.”

Antonin Scalia

NPR interview with Nina Totenberg ; as cited in Scalia: A Court of One https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/1451611463, Bruce Allen Murphy, Simon & Schuster (2014), p. 374
2010s

Hope , Time

“Those who believe that racial preferences can help to 'even the score' display, and reinforce, a manner of thinking about race that was the source of the injustice and that will, if it endures within our society, be the source of more injustice still.”

Antonin Scalia

On affirmative action: Richmond v. Croson Co. (1989) (concurring).
1980s

Thinking , Help

“You could fire a grapefruit out of a cannon over the best law schools in the country - and that includes Chicago - and not hit an originalist.”

Antonin Scalia

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

School , Law , Country

“Judges who find Constitutional rights the Framers never intended take important issues out of the public space of democratic debate and suspend them in a sort of legal formaldehyde.”

Antonin Scalia

Speech at University of Vermont, 8 October 2004 http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=article.php&id=1389
2000s

“The Court's statement that it is 'tempting' to acknowledge the authoritativeness of tradition in order to 'curb the discretion of federal judges' is, of course, rhetoric rather than reality; no government official is 'tempted' to place restraints upon his own freedom of action, which is why Lord Acton did not say 'Power tends to purify.' The Court's temptation is in the quite opposite and more natural direction -- towards systematically eliminating checks upon its own power; and it succumbs.”

Antonin Scalia

Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&navby=case&vol=505&invol=833&friend=oyez (1992) (dissenting).
1990s

Nature , Reality , Freedom

“Among the questions considered nonjusticiable is the definition of an impeachable offense. Whatever Congress says is an impeachable offense is an impeachable offense.”

Antonin Scalia

2000s
Source: The definition of high crimes and misdemeanors: Speech at Berne, Switzerland http://www.bafweb.com/60308scalia.wmv (2006).

Question

“If I were king, I would not allow people to go about burning the American flag. However, we have a First Amendment which says that the right of free speech shall not be abridged.”

Antonin Scalia

And it is addressed, in particular, to speech critical of the government.
New York Times (July 19, 2012)
2010s

People

“The operation was a success, but the patient died.”

Antonin Scalia

What such a procedure is to medicine, the Court's opinion in this case is to law.
National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, 524 U.S. 569 (1998) (Scalia, concurring).
1990s

Success

“In the 1970's and 1980's vaccines became, one might say, victims of their own success. They had been so effective in preventing infectious diseases that the public became much less alarmed at the threat of those diseases, and much more concerned with the risk of injury from the vaccines themselves.”

Antonin Scalia

Bruesewitz v. Wyeth, 562 U.S. 223 (2011), 226.
2010s

Disease , Success

“I find it a sufficient embarrassment that our Establishment Clause jurisprudence regarding holiday displays has come to 'require[e] scrutiny more commonly associated with interior decorators than with the judiciary.'”

Antonin Scalia

But interior decorating is a rock hard science compared to psychology practiced by amateurs.

Lee v. Weisman (1992, dissenting); decided June 24, 1992.
1990s

Holiday

“It seems to me that the more Christian a country is the less likely it is to regard the death penalty as immoral. Abolition has taken its firmest hold in post-Christian Europe, and has least support in the church-going United States. I attribute that to the fact that, for the believing Christian, death is no big deal. Intentionally killing an innocent person is a big deal: it is a grave sin, which causes one to lose his soul. But losing this life, in exchange for the next? The Christian attitude is reflected in the words Robert Bolt’s play has Thomas More saying to the headsman: 'Friend, be not afraid of your office. You send me to God.'”

Antonin Scalia

For the nonbeliever, on the other hand, to deprive a man of his life is to end his existence.
God’s Justice and Ours https://web.archive.org/web/20120311230630/http://www.firstthings.com/article/2007/01/gods-justice-and-ours-32, 123 First Things 17. (May 2002). Adapted from remarks given at Pew Forum Conference on Religion, politics and death penalty.
2000s

God , Soul , Country , Penalty