Last night, America lost a great guardian to the light of liberty as Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died at age 79. He stood to protect and defend the Constitution that he swore an oath to preserve. We quote Scalia extensively in our book, Vigilance The Price of Liberty.
In an interview with Piers Morgan in 2012, referring to the question of torture as punishment, Scalia perfectly highlights the importance of the role of the judicial branch of the government and what he stood for to demonstrate his resolute conviction:
MORGAN: Isn’t it down to the Supreme Court to effectively give a more modern interpretation of the spirit of what that means, to adapt it to modern times [emphasis added]?
SCALIA: Well, that’s lovely. (LAUGHTER)
MORGAN: Well, I know you don’t think it is. But why don’t you think it is?
SCALIA: Well, I don’t think it is, because, look, the background principle of all of this is democracy. [emphasis added] A self-governing people who decide the laws that will be applied to them. There are exceptions to that. Those exceptions are contained in the Constitution, mostly in the Bill of Rights. And you cannot read those exceptions as broadly as the current courts desires to read them, thereby depriving Americans of legitimate choices that the American people have never decided to take away from them [emphasis added].
(Vigilance The Price of Liberty, pg.82)
Justice Scalia understood his role as a Supreme Court Justice. He was extremely knowledgeable of history, the law and our founding document, but he also had the ability to articulate these abstract thoughts into intelligible explanations.
But what happens next? In essence the President makes a nomination to the Senate Judiciary Committee, currently composed of 11 Republicans and 9 Democrats. They interview the candidate then typically recommend the candidate go to the Senate for a vote. However, a vote may be stalled if a 60-vote threshold filibuster in the Senate is not overcome.
The prior attempt to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in a presidential election year was in 1968. Then President Johnson tried to move Justice Abe Fortas to Chief Justice, but the Senate blocked Fortas and the other nomination (to fill Fortas’s spot as associate justice). Johnson later withdrew the nomination.
Most people do not remember the excellent TV series, Ethics in America, that aired in the late 80s - and fewer realize that Scalia appeared twice on this show. It is with the fondest of memories we provide this link to one of the episodes. Ethics in America, and its examination of contemporary ethical conflicts, was made for Scalia and his ability to take these tough issues and produce logical resolutions.
"To Defend a Killer" episode 2, Ethics in America, Annenberg Learner
No comments:
Post a Comment