Justice Scalia on Judges

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia advises people not to judge judges unless you have studied the cases that they have. The full interview appears Friday, Oct. 9 on C-SPAN's Supreme Court Week. For more information visit: http://supremecourt.c-span.org/

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[jcr254]

I wish more people would watch this instead of inane videos of dogs biting people. Perhaps people would stop bitching about our government if they actually knew how it operated.

[joejohnson043]

Your statement is wrong! He is bound to the Constitution as the supreme law of the land in his statement here. Thus, the states must respect the Bill of Rights, because they ratified the constitution and are subject to it. When Chicago loses its gun ban case it will be for this very reason.The "activist" judge is a despot and guilty of treason. If we had a real Congress, those judges would be impeached, but since the Democrats like those types of judges to make laws they can't pass.....

[joejohnson043]

@doowoplover534 your post is off by 8 years. You should be able to see by now that we didn't actually get any oil profits, though we should have. They haven't even repaid a dime that we spent on those wars, and have awarded the best oil contracts to our enemy/competitors.

[joejohnson043]

@CfuenmayorJr123 try to imagine a court using their 'living law' doctrine to make laws completely against what you view as right and decent. Would you still like their activism? What is your recourse? Congress, passing a law to overturn judges interpreting on their own whim? But then they declare those new laws don't apply. At what point do we need a legislature? We would just have a big fat civil war over who gets to appoint judges, and the winner can appoint our oligarchs for life....

[doowoplover534]

Scalia is nothing but a republican hack appointed by Bush 1. He is to blame for the Bush election victory by not counting the votes. He should be ashamed to be the one responsible for the illegal wars in the middle east and the loss of lives ,by the millions, for oil profits . How can this scum judge look in the mirror? He disgraces his country and the Italians.

[sklanger]

@CfuenmayorJr123 The Constitution gave the Supreme Court the power of judicial review. Art. III's "the judicial power" encompasses the power of judicial review. What does vagueness have to do with whether laws are living or static?

Contracts are vague, so we interpret them differently than at the time they were made? Wills are interpreted differently than what the testator intends? Legislation doesn't mean what it meant at the time of enactment? Vagueness is carte blanche for lawlessness?

[phoenixdef]

@joejohnson043 For you to use 'activist' judge in this context, you presume that strict originalism is the correct constitutional interpretation...

[CfuenmayorJr123]

@joejohnson043 I feel the statement "the 'activist' judge is a despot..." is so inane, that I cannot go by without refuting it. The arguably activist judge John Marhsall gave the Supreme Court the power of Judicial review, and where would Scalia be without that?; another activist judge, Earl Warren, so mightily pushed to have equality finally materialize in this country. The Constituion was left deliberately vague so that it could be a living document, not a static one.

[reel1840]

give me a clear answer!

[writersblock26]

Thank you for posting this, CSPAN.

[DStrike0083]

@kemar207 so we should stop judicial discretion? Btw most cases are determined by juries. Judges are for appellate courts and many do not overturn juries. So blame them

[kemar207]

@DStrike0083 No. Interpreting it the way you want is what most judges do and that's why there are screwy judgements that all contradict each other floating around. The whole premise of law is that similar cases should be decided in similar ways through the application of legal principles. In reality, it all depends on your judge. Some judges convict everybody. Some judges hardly convict anybody at all. Different people get treated differently depending on their judges. That is injustice.