Source: https://allthesethings.typepad.com/allthesethings/law/
Timestamp: 2019-04-23 06:28:42+00:00

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Ah! A new, safer world is now here! At least in California. Here, our nannies--sometimes referred to as state legislators--have implemented a hands-free-driving law. It is probably more accurate to note that it's the phones used while driving that must be with a hands-free device.
The net effect, however, I think will be the same. You are allowed to dial with your hands--I'm not good with my nose and I feel using my feet would make me a less-safe driver--you just can't talk with your hands (the ACLU has filed suit on behalf of all Italian-Californians.) So, the nannies determined that it is not the concentration limitation when talking that causes the accidents, it is the holding of the phone. That's be a bit different than my experience. In fact, I have an unofficial--yet often utilized--rule when Mrs. More is driving: cease all conversation 3/4ths of a mile before any major freeway interchange she should be taking. I don't, however, stop holding hands with her. My conclusion: the concentration in conversations, particularly with a certain half of our species, is more important than the use of any appendages.
It now appears that the scientific research on the topic is less than conclusive--can you imagine, Sacramento passing a law before they understood the problem? Shocking! In this piece from the LA Times, it is shown that it is unproven what effect hands-free v. hand-held phone usage has on driving. One study, interestingly, noted that the mere talking on the phone (hands-free or not) impaired driving as much as drunkeness. (They do not note how drunk though.) Also not commented on: if a drunk was talking on the phone while driving, would the two factors cancel each other out--kind of like a double negative?
So, we have a law that isn't shown to be designed to solve a problem--diminished driving capacity based on hand usage. The law allows a person to dial with their hands, the person just can't hold the phone to their ear with their hands. Which do you think is more of a danger while driving: holding or dialing? But, for those of you who are outraged at your communication-freedom limitation, have cheer. The law does NOT ban texting while driving. Perfect, right. I can't hold my hand to my head and look forward, but I can type while looking at a one inch screen.
never enter a crosswalk where someone is trying a right-on-red while talking on the phone (with or without hands) and looking at traffic to their left--they are going to turn without looking at pedestrians, we all know it, so why step out?
As is so often the case, we probably need less laws on things and more enforcement of existing rules. If someone is driving in an unsafe manner--for whatever reason: cell phone, yelling at kids, changing the DVD in the car, rocking out to Cheap Trick, etc.--then pull them over and cite them. Instead, we get a goofy ok-to-text-not-to-talk law that creates a boom in hands-free-device purchases with no evidence anyone will be safer. Oh well, at least we'll have a nice mailer telling us how many lives Sen. John Q. Moron saved while in Sacramento!
The U.S. Supreme Court announced today that it will hear the first major 2nd Amendment case in 70 years. The case involves a challenge to Washington, D.C.'s strict hand-gun ban. D.C. has, for many years, been one of the nation's most dangerous cities. The city council, in 1976, passed the ban to reduce violent crime. Rifles and shot guns are still allowed, and businesses can own hand guns for protection. Apparently the council cared about the type of weapon criminals used to shoot people and where those victims were--at home or at work.
Regardless, the ban hasn't worked. D.C. has not freed itself from the violence. There are two things to look for the ban's failure. You should also consider the constitutional merits of the arguments on both sides. As to the effectiveness--which doesn't speak to the constitutionality at all, as something could be meritless and constitutional or vice versa--the ban is ineffective. D.C. was before the ban, and remains after the ban, a high crime area.
Why wouldn't banning hand guns reduce the crime? You should consider two statistics. One, 5 of 6 guns used in crimes are not acquired legally. Criminals have a tendency to ignore the law--including, not suprisingly, gun bans--to get what they want. Guns can be stolen or bought from other criminals. Bans don't reduce the total number of guns in the country. They just limit the places that will sell them. Thus, a perfectly effective ban can only influence--not eliminate--1/6th of the gun crimes. And then, I would assume, the affected 17% would get their weapons elsewhere, or use another weapon.
Two, in a study of prisoners, the top things criminals said they feared during home-invasion crimes were: 1) an armed home owner and 2) the police. Those two items tied for first place amongst the criminals' fears. Thus, by reducing access of home owners to guns, you reduce one of the prime deterrents. You do not, however, significantly reduce the number of guns criminals have.
While the intention behind the ban is noble--reducing violent crime--it is possible that the effect is the exact opposite. One part of the society--the law abiders--lose a deterrent, while the criminals remain, largely, unaffected.
Whether bans are effective, however, does not speak to their constitutionality. You could effectively get rid of slander by banning all public speech; but that would not pass constitutional muster. So, as the Supreme Court will consider, does banning private ownership of hand guns pass violate the Second Amendment?
The argument that it does is that the amendment begins "a well regulated militia..." Hence, the right secured is a group right, the militia's right. There are problems with that idea though. One, the militia was historically all able-bodied, male citizens. Thus, the group was all individuals--there was not a distinction as there is with the modern army soldier versus civilian. Two, the amendment confirms the individual nature of the right in the last clause: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." It is the people's right, not a group's. By reviewing Amendment 10, you can see that "the people" is not the federal or state government. Thus, the government infringing the right should be out of the question. The third problem is not acknowledging that self-defense reasons, and not simply military service, would go without saying in colonial times. It would be a given that the gun over your mantle could and would be used in self defense. What needed to be made explicit was that the government could not take away the militia's role in that self defense--the defense of your rights against an encroaching power.
As such, the argument for the constitutional validity of gun bans seems weak. But the emotional appeals for more gun regulations remain strong. Why is this? Because we all see the terrible results of improper gun use on T.V. every day. Is it possible, that more gun ownership and better training would help reduce these scenes? Are most citizens prone to blood-thirsty rampages, or would they be more likely to stop a crime, if they could? Would someone not prone to armed robbery be tempted to it, merely by having easy access to a gun? Would criminals be less likely to assault, burgle, or try to murder, if they thought there was a high chance that the victim was armed? For a natural example, do predators typically attack the strongest or weakest members of the herd? Out of fear of a bite, blinding, or broken leg, predators seek the weak as their prey.
In 1987, when Florida enacted such legislation, critics warned that the "Sunshine State" would become the "Gunshine State." Contrary to their predictions, homicide rates dropped faster than the national average. Further, through 1997, only one permit holder out of the over 350,000 permits issued, was convicted of homicide. (Source: Kleck, Gary Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, p 370. Walter de Gruyter, Inc., New York, 1997.) If the rest of the country behaved as Florida's permit holders did, the U.S. would have the lowest homicide rate in the world.
One homicide, 5 gun crimes, and yet over 300,000 concealed carriers. What is happening? Maybe the Founders were on to something. It seems the best of intentions with these laws actually takes things in the wrong direction. That direction also happens to be irreconcilable with the Constitution. Hopefully the Supreme Court will see that as well. I would prefer that they strike down such bans on the simple language of the Constitution, rather than on some statistical-effectiveness basis. I think they will in fact do just that.
A few months back, the eldest Morette and I were riding bikes together. She was still using training wheels at the time--and so was I, in a sense. As we came towards home she peddled ahead a bit. As I approached our curb, I saw her off her bike fiddling with the back wheel. I pulled up and asked her what she was up to. "I'm taking off the training wheels," she replied. And she did, with her hands. I went in and got a wrench to help, but she led the charge.
She had noticed that other kids in the neighborhood weren't using them anymore, so she decided it was time for her to brave the asphalt with only two wheels. I had not encouraged this--and was even a bit skeptical--but I let her try it. We went out to the center of the road. She didn't ask for a lesson, and I didn't give one. With two wobbly wheels beneath her, I held her seat while she got her balance, and then took a few steps steadying her. Then, off she went. She went to the end of the block and stopped. I came down and held again, this time with fewer steps. Back at our house, she turned around, and then took off without my help. And she has been riding ever since.
There have been a few little falls since then, but nothing major. She loves to ride now, and is proud of not having the training wheels. What I love about it is that it wasn't my idea, it was hers. She knew it was time to try, and had the courage to do it.
Her display of courage on our sidewalk--taking on the next challenge in life, unscrewing those training wheels--had a big impact on me. It was around that same time that I started wondering what to do about my work life. I have been working for others my entire career. Over the last year or so, it has felt less and less satisfying. The anxiety was rising faster than the raises were rising!
Watching Morette One taking off those training wheels had a profound effective on me: it gave me the courage to do the same thing.
So today was my first day working for the new boss: Thomas More. I'm on my own, with no safety wheels. It's a bit scary, and a bit exhilarating.
As I finish my first day without training wheels, I wanted to thank all my friends that have been an encouragement to me leading up to this move. And I wanted to thank my family for giving me the courage to try.
Well, Philly's psychics didn't see this coming: the police have begun shutting down all seers' shops in the city. Apparently there is a 30-year-old law on the books banning visions-for-profit enterprises--yes, you are probably wondering, this does also include astrologers, phrenologists and tarot-card readers. It appears Philly's council, three decades ago, might have been concerned about mediums' mendacity: defrauding folks. In any event, the Philly police have recently begun enforcing the law.
Which the shop owners should have seen coming.
You should read this article. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has taken on the 'Evil' McCain-Feingold law. It was passed in the name of "reform." It is far from it; in fact it makes things worse, much worse.
A bedrock principle of our republic is freedom of speech. Congress shall make no law abridging it, says the Constitution. The main purpose of that provision was not to make sure exotic dancers could practice their trade, or that juveniles could curse in public settings--both of which are allowed by case law under our freedom-of-speech jurisprudence. No, the 1st Amendment was drafted in the context of the King of England suppressing his citizens' objections to his policies. The Founders did not want this for our new country.
So McCain-Feingold comes along and bars groups from talking about federal candidates near federal elections. When would be better to have a debate about such candidates?!?! This law is an affront to our very political order. Plus, as Romney points out, it does not work. As McCain tries to force money out of politics, he actually forces it into the shadows, where citizens can get less information about who is spending what. Columnist George Will has noted, too, that there is more money spent by Americans on pork rinds than on politics, so the notion that we are spending too much on politics is debatable.
Here's a couple of the highlights from Romney's article, but read the whole thing.
Let's start with something basic: the American people should be free to advocate for their candidates and their positions without burdensome limitations. Indeed, such advocacy can play an important educational role in elections, helping to provide information to voters on a range of issues. Do we really want government telling us when we can engage in political speech, and what form it can take?
The American people should be able to exercise their First Amendment rights without having to think about hiring a lawyer. But that is the direction in which we are headed. In 2004, the non-profit group Wisconsin Right to Life wanted to run grassroots radio and television ads urging people in the state to contact their Senators (which the ads mentioned by name) and ask them to oppose the ongoing filibusters of President Bush's judicial nominees. A provision in McCain-Feingold, however, was used to argue that the ads were illegal. Rendering a verdict on what constitutes acceptable political speech is something for voters – not judges – to decide.
So who, other than lawyers trained in the intricacies of federal campaign law, has benefited from McCain-Feingold? Washington's political class. Restricting political speech ultimately hurts those in the greatest need of political speech – challengers to incumbent politicians (thus the joke that McCain-Feingold should be called the "Incumbent Protection Act"). Do we really need Washington politicians doing themselves more favors to protect their jobs?
What's the split? What items need to be split? What is a federal dollar? What is a state dollar? Does any of this help us preserve democracy?
On a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court just upheld a federal law banning partial-birth abortion. It is a procedure where the baby is partially delivered, and then the skull is crushed to abort the birth. To understand how gruesome it is, you should read about it.
The Court did not strike down all late abortions, and women can still have abortions where the baby is dismembered in the uterus and then extracted. Opponents of abortion say this will not reduce the total number of abortions, it will just change the method. Abortion advocates fear this is the first step in the federal and state governments moving to regulate, and thus limit, abortions.
The case is legally and politically significant in that it shows the importance of judicial nominees. Both of President Bush's recent appointments--Roberts and Alito--voted with the majority. They joined Kennedy, Scalia, and Thomas. Just a few years ago a very similar law was struck down by the Court in Stenberg v. Carhart. But the recent additions to the Court resulted in a changed position; 4-5 has become 5-4.
Now in the minority, Justice Ginsberg wrote "Today's decision is alarming," in that it "refuses to take ... seriously" the Supreme Court's past decisions on abortion. Good. The Court's previous rulings were not serious. They were case studies in ignoring the Constitution to get the outcome 5 or more Justices personally wanted. That is not the job of a judge--they are supposed to interpret the law and Constitution, as written. They must ignore their own personal desires, which might be contrary to, or not mentioned in, the Constitution--if they want to legislate their own views, they need to run for Congress. Abortion never appears in the Constitution. In fact, nothing remotely close to the topic is in the Constitution. Yet, with Roe v. Wade, a constitutional "right" was invented/discovered and we've been locked in a national debate ever since.
The constitutional position is, like most issues, that abortion is a state issue. If you believe in abortion, you should convince your state to allow it. But there need not be a federal right to it imposed nationwide. Hopefully today's ruling is the first step in restoring constitutional order surrounding this issue. Neither abortion foes nor advocates, by the way, should not fear constitutional order. Our system functions best when people can debate and advocate for their positions state by state. When debate--in a legislative sense--is stifled by judicial fiat, pressure, anger, and violence build. The Supreme Court's most famous fiat on slavery, Dred Scott, ended state-by-state debate and led the nation to civil war. That is not good for anyone, on either side of an issue. It is better to let issues play out in the states, "the laboratories of democracy."
As the crier says: "God save this honorable Court!"
"There were many points in the case where caution would have served justice better than bravado," North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said.
He described the situation as a "'tragic rush to accuse' by an overreaching district attorney."
"I think a lot of people owe a lot of apologies to a lot of people,"
"Based on the significant inconsistencies between the evidence and the various accounts given by the accusing witness, we believe these three individuals are innocent of these charges,"
"This case shows the enormous consequences of overreaching by a prosecutor,"
So ends the Duke Lacrosse case brought by (soon-to-be-disbarred-and-sued-for-civil-rights-violations) District Attorney Mike Nifong. Note that the AG found the players "innocent." Usually a prosecutor will dismiss with a statement that they "could not prove someone did it." Not being able to prove someone did it, beyond a reasonable doubt, is worlds different than a prosecutor saying someone is innocent. This is damning to Nifong. And it demonstrates the exact reasons the Constitution's Framers were so fearful of government power. The government has endless resources--your tax dollars--and time. Three college students have nothing. Therefore, they wanted 10 guilty people to go free rather than 1 innocent person be convicted. Yet still, prosecutors can destroy lives.
Most prosecutorial misconduct cases don't get nearly this amount of press. The defendants-turned-victims simply have their names smeared, their cases quietly dismissed months or years later, and their savings spent on legal fees. But even though these defendants are getting publicly vindicated, I still feel very badly for them, their teammates, and their families. They've lost their sports season, their reputations--even with this dismissal, their resume line of "Duke Lacrosse Team" will forever prompt questions, their once-happy memories of college, and their faith in our justice system. What would Nifong's apology really do for them? Hopefully this drama causes all Americans to focus on the tremendous power we give to prosecutors, and to be more thoughtful in their selections.
I think most voters blow right past the question of their local District Attorney come election time. This case is why you need to do some research. Don't look at "conviction rates" or their press releases. Don't worry if they are an incumbent. Find out if they are people of character. Can they do justice in the face of mob opposition? Will they treat the poor and the rich the same? Will they make prosecutorial decisions--and thus bring the full power of the state down on some poor chump who was in the wrong place at the wrong time--to enhance their political career or to further justice? Will they apply the law or their will?
I have been involved in DA campaigns. In many ways I find them more important than presidential campaigns. I'm not exaggerating. Pay attention to them. If citizens do not use their power in the ballot box to throw out unjust leaders, they will be the victims--eventually--of injustice.
Thank goodness this buffoon Nifong--who has wrecked lives in his desire for re-election--is being shown for who he is and has brought this issue to our attention.
There is a difference between having a constitutional right to something and having the Constitution require the government to pay you for something. For example, the 2nd Amendment gives you the right to own a gun: "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." But there is no constitutional provision, nor is there a case that I know of, that requires Congress to pay for guns for people who want them, but can't afford them. Whereas with trials, the 6th Amendment does say that a person receive "the Assistance of Counsel for his defence." Thus, if I can't afford counsel, the Constitution requires the government to pay for one--that's where we get public defenders from.
What, then, does the Constitution say about abortions? Well, nothing. As most know, however, the Supreme Court--in Roe v. Wade--found a constitutional right to an abortion in the Constitution--implicitly rather than explicitly. Thus, Congress and the states, cannot pass laws prohibiting abortions. Roe, however, does not require Congress or the states to pay for those abortions. Essentially, if you want one, the government does not have to help you pay for one. This is true for guns, too. It is also true for countless other medical procedures--you can get a face lift, tummy tuck, or 'enhancement' all you want, but the government does not have to pay for it.
Rudy Giuliani told CNN Wednesday he supports public funding for some abortions, a position he advocated as mayor and one that will likely put the GOP presidential candidate at odds with social conservatives in his party.
He says not paying for an elective procedure is the government "denying" a right. That might be true in the case of assistance of counsel in a trial. It is not the case with gun ownership or abortion--or many other protected rights like free speech, assembly, etc. If a person wants something the Constitution allows them to have they have to pay for it. That's true whether it is a microphone for a speech, a printing press for a paper, a gun, or an abortion.
Giuliani missing this distinction is interesting. He is a lawyer and a candidate for President. As such, he should know that his position is incorrect constitutionally/legally and unnecessary politically. The constitutional argument is described above. But even on simple politics, the far left supports public funding--which Congress has the ability to provide under current law, if they feel it is good policy--not because it is legally required, but because they think it is good policy. Most Americans don't agree with them on this and think tax payer dollars should go elsewhere. This belief is especially true amongst limited-government and pro-life coalitions in the GOP. Thus, this position is bad politics for a candidate running in a GOP primary.
Assuming he won the GOP primary, this position does not even help him win the general election by making him appear more "moderate" to the average voter. Public funding of abortion is not a moderate, everyday-American view. Thus, this is simply bad policy mixed with bad politics on Giuliani's part. He should change his position to be in line--fortuitously for him--with both the Constitution and the vast majority of GOP primary voters, and most Americans.
Sometimes leaders must side with the Constitution at the expense of popular opinion, that is their charge when they swear to uphold the document. This may cost them political points, but they nevertheless have a sworn duty. Here, Giuliani does not have that problem and can more easily change his position. He might be labeled a "flip flopper", but better to change to a constitutional policy than be stubborn against one for the sake of "consistency."
It is generally agreed that no one is retiring from the U.S. Supreme Court before President Bush's term ends. Thus, adding C.J. Roberts and J. Alito has moved the Court one step to the right--Roberts for Rehnquist was an ideological 'push' and Alito (conservative) for O'Connor (moderate) is the rightward step. At least, that's the conventional wisdom. Many have been surprised before how a justice's career plays out.
But, despite these two appointments, the basic make-up of the Court is exactly the same as it was when President Clinton left. There is a block on the left, a block on the right, and the swing vote(s) in the middle decide most devisive cases. It was O'Connor and Kennedy between Rehnquist- Thomas-Scalia and Stevens-Ginsburg-Souter-Breyer. Now, it is J. Kennedy between four on each side (Roberts-Alito-Thomas-Scalia and Stevens-Ginsburg-Souter-Breyer.) As before, how the moderate goes, so goes the Court, generally.
That is what makes this story so interesting, though it is purely speculation based on one day's worth of observations. This reporter is definitely feeling that Justice Ginsburg's health is declining. Given J. Ginsburg's position as a reliable liberal vote on the Court, I can't imagine her retiring to be replaced by a Bush appointee. If she did, the Court's fundamentally moderate disposition of--moderate Kennedy gets to decide all the barn burners--would likely change to a conservative disposition. Replacing J. Ginsburg with a Janice Rogers Brown would create a solid 5-vote conservative block, the likes of which we have not had in my lifetime.
Politics is fluid. The notion that President Bush is a lame duck is rampant. But if J. Ginsburg does leave the Court, the most important action of President Bush's administration is still before him--which is pretty incredible if you think of all that's happened so far. Very few things could change our nation more, in the near and long terms, than the 5-vote block I mentioned above. This could have a profound impact on almost all the issues political activists, and concerned citizens of all stripes, hold dear. It would likely, eventually, change the law--and our interpretation of the Constitution--on abortion, the War on Terror, free speech and obscenity laws, governmental regulations of every type, states' rights, and more. Thus, while this story is no guarantee of any change to the Court, the importance of such a change warrants paying attention to how this develops.
Here is a great article on Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. It is by Terry Eastland, publisher of the "Weekly Standard". It is quite lengthy, but worth the time. If you want to get a great primer on American constitutional law, the history of the Supreme Court, the impact of Scalia on the Court and American legal thought, and the past and future of constitutional interpretation, you need to read the entire piece. This will be particularly useful for non-lawyers who might be confused or intimidated by typical discussions on the Supreme Court and its decisions--which affect all Americans.
Scalia is deservedly held in high regard for his intellect and wit and writing ability. He compares favorably with two of the Court's greatest stylists, Oliver Wendell Holmes and Robert Jackson. Of his 635 opinions so far, a large number--beginning with his solitary dissent in the 1988 case sustaining the independent counsel statute, Morrison v. Olson, a dissent already vindicated by the passage of time--will be taught in law schools many decades hence. Scalia's opinions are essential in evaluating his work, to be sure, but to see his unique contribution as a justice, it is necessary to place his arrival at the Court in historical context. Someday it may be said of Scalia that he was the justice who pioneered the effort to put the text back into statutory law, and the Constitution back into constitutional law.
Scalia's view of what a good judge is starts with the fact that ours is a constitutional democracy. We are a people (Scalia would say) who have chosen to govern ourselves through a written Constitution to which we have not assigned every authority, as we have left some to the states. (Federalism is what we call this dual sovereignty.) We have taken the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, and vested them in, respectively, Congress, the president, and the judiciary. And while Congress and the president share in the exercise of some powers--for example, the president and the Senate share the power to appoint (but not to nominate) judges--the judiciary does not. It exercises only the judicial power. And, in cases of law, for Scalia as for the Framers, the judicial power is the power to interpret the law, not to make it. It is telling that the title Scalia chose for the 1997 book collecting the Tanner Lectures he gave at Princeton in 1995, in which he set forth his view of judging, is A Matter of Interpretation.
More than a century ago, in the hands of the Supreme Court, the judicial power began to undergo a transformation that was well advanced by the time Scalia was in elementary school. In the 1986 book tracing the evolution of the judicial power, published just as Scalia joined the Supreme Court, political scientist Christopher Wolfe described the emergence of "judge-made law," which, against the hopes of the Framers, had become "another variant of legislative power."
The growth of judicial power is in an important sense a story of liberties taken with texts--specifically of the refusal by justices to follow the text of laws as understood at the time of their enactment and of the willingness by courts to "interpret" the law in light of various extratextual considerations. The kind of text in a given case--statutory or constitutional--did not matter. The result was the same: The people's text, whether made by majorities or, in the case of the Constitution, supermajorities, would be displaced by the judges' text. The justices became lawmakers.
And why not repair to "intent" in determining the meaning of a statute? Legislators, says Scalia, have many different reasons (or none at all) for voting for a bill, defeating the possibility of any singular or collective intent. And the sources judges typically turn to in search of legislative intent--in the legislative history--can't be taken at face value, given that such history has been known to be manufactured to serve strategic purposes, including that of trying to persuade a judge open to it. But even assuming that legislative intent can be found, Scalia objects to it for a fundamental reason: It's not been passed by both houses and presented to the president for his signature, as Article I of the Constitution requires a law to be. In short, it is not a law--a point humorously made in a concurring opinion by Scalia: "We are a Government of laws, not of committee reports."
For Scalia, the starting point for constitutional interpretation is recognition that the Constitution, as he put it in the Tanner Lectures, is "an unusual text." It is the supreme law through which we govern ourselves and thus does not contain "nit-picking detail" (which detail is found in the mind-numbing U.S. Code). Its words and phrases should be given, says Scalia, "an expansive rather than narrow interpretation--though not an interpretation the text will not bear." Not "strict construction" but "reasonable construction" is the goal.
For obvious reasons, Scalia's constitutional jurisprudence is often described as one of "text and tradition." Indeed, he has often put it that way himself. But it bears emphasis that, for Scalia, nothing other than text and tradition is relevant to the task of interpreting the Constitution. Scalia explicitly rejects resort to natural law, however defined, and international law. The Court's citation of foreign law in a 2002 case drew a witty response from Scalia. Having in mind Chief Justice John Marshall's famous statement "We must never forget that it is a constitution we are expounding" (McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819), Scalia wrote: "We must never forget that it is a Constitution for the United States of America that we are expounding."
Scalia has a simple way of capturing what happened to constitutional interpretation. It came to serve the "Living Constitution," which Scalia defines as "a body of law that (unlike normal statutes) grows and changes from age to age, in order to meet the needs of a changing society." Justices who embraced the Living Constitution were often candid about its evolution and their role in bringing it about. In Trop v. Dulles (1958), the Court said that "the words of the [Eighth] Amendment are not precise . . . their scope is not static. The Amendment must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society." Eight years later in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, the Court observed that "we have never been confined to historic notions of equality" and that "notions of what constitutes equal treatment for purposes of the Equal Protection Clause do change." In opposition to the Living Constitution, Scalia once declared: "I defend a dead Constitution." Scalia is quick to point out that the "dead Constitution" contains an amendment process by which Americans, and not judges, can alter the Constitution in order to meet "the needs of a changing society."
But Scalia isn't thinking only about the next decade or so. By his own admission he also writes for the long term, hoping to influence the next generation of lawyers. And certainly he has achieved that aim: Far more law review articles have been written about Scalia and his decisions than about any of his colleagues. The Scalia effect, if it finally takes hold, will be seen in a Court that understands what Scalia himself observed soon after he joined the Court--that "the main danger in judicial interpretation of the Constitution--or, for that matter, in judicial interpretation of any law--is that judges will mistake their own predilections for the law."
But in the early 20th century, the Court read the clause to impose not merely procedural but also substantive limitations on government power. In a 1905 case, Lochner v. New York, for instance, the Court, citing the "liberty of contract," struck down a New York state law limiting the hours that bakery employees could work. The Court eventually abandoned "economic substantive due process." But it didn't give up the idea that "substance" of some kind--not found in the text or history of the Constitution--may be poured into the due process clause. And in the 1960s and early 1970s, personal choice and privacy became the new substance so protected. Indeed, Justice Harry Blackmun's opinion for the Court in Roe v. Wade located the abortion right in the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As one might expect, Scalia has issued a comprehensive indictment of the doctrine: "The entire practice of using the Due Process Clause to add judicially favored rights to the limitations upon democracy set forth in the Bill of Rights (usually under the rubric of so-called 'substantive due process')," he wrote in a 1999 case, "is in my view judicial usurpation."
Long, but worth the effort. Other than Ronald Reagan, Scalia will likely be the most important figure in federal government during most of our lifetimes. He is worth getting to know.

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