Posted on 04/11/2003 5:07:27 PM PDT by bourbon
04/10/2003
UNIVERSITY, Miss. - U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a standing-room-only crowd at the University of Mississippi Thursday afternoon to beware of the concept of the Constitution as a "living document."
Scalia, 67, a conservative justice known for legal decisions based on strict interpretations of the U.S. Constitution, said people who want change in society should use the democratic process, not the courts, to bring it about.
"What makes you think that a living Constitution is going to evolve in the direction of greater freedoms?" Scalia asked. "It could evolve in the direction of less freedom, and it has."
The controversial jurist drew more than 900 students, faculty, staff and others to Fulton Chapel for the James McClure Memorial Lecture in Law. The event was free and open to the public.
Scalia, a Reagan appointee who has served on the nation's highest court since 1986, has angered both liberals and conservatives at times with his opinions. In 1989, he cast the deciding fifth vote in Texas v. Johnson, the decision that struck down laws against burning the American flag. At the time, conservatives were incensed. Thursday afternoon, Scalia told the UM crowd in that case and others, he was handcuffed by the Constitution.
"I would have been delighted to throw Mr. (Gregory Lee) Johnson in jail," Scalia said of the man tied to the flag case. "Unfortunately, as I understand the First Amendment, I couldn't do it."
While Scalia's strict interpretation protects those rights expressly written by the framers in 1791, he said he doesn't recognize rights that many people today take for granted as constitutional. For instance, Scalia, a devout Catholic and father of nine, has vigorously opposed abortion on the grounds that it's not a right guaranteed specifically, even though other justices interpret it otherwise.
But this kind of interpretation, Scalia said, goes far beyond their role as jurists and turns justices into policy makers, which in turn pollutes the selection process.
Scalia referenced the embattled Bush nominations to the U.S. Court of Appeals.
"People have finally figured out ... that judges aren't interpreting law anymore, they're making policy," Scalia said. "So I don't want a good lawyer, I want someone who agrees with me.
"We'll have to have a mini-constitutional convention every time they select a new justice of the Supreme Court."
Outside Fulton Chapel, about 15 students from the campus chapters of the National Organization for Women and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Association staged a quiet protest.
"There are several important cases in front of the court right now," said Amy Clukey, president of UM's NOW and a senior from Deltona, Fla. "Sodomy laws, affirmative action at the University of Michigan, and of course, abortion rights are always an issue."
Chris Kelly from Sherman carried a sign that read: "Sodomy Laws are against basic human freedoms."
"I wanted to take the opportunity to speak up for those who are unwilling or unable to speak up for themselves," Kelly said.
Inside the auditorium, Scalia drew fire from the other side of the political spectrum when he opened the floor to questions. Jim Giles of Richland, a private citizen and outspoken proponent of conservative causes, had driven to campus for the speech. He told Scalia that the university's ban of flags on sticks in Vaught-Hemingway Stadium was just a "pretext to ban the Confederate flag. How isn't that unconstitutional?"
Scalia paused, then answered slowly, with a wave of his hand. "I have no idea."
The crowd laughed and applauded. The Supreme Court has upheld the university's right on the ban.
After the speech, second-year law students Brett McColl of Toledo, Ohio, Joey Long of Henderson, N.C., and David Ford of Memphis said Scalia argued so convincingly for strict constitutional interpretation that they wished another legal scholar had been available to present a counter-point.
"I generally disagree with just about everything the man writes, but he's definitely intelligent and knows the law," McColl said.
According to Scalia, knowing the law and how to apply it is his only job.
"People who want to read one new law into the Constitution after another, from abortion rights to grandparents' rights, are not looking for a flexible government," he said. "They're looking for rigidity."
It was Scalia's third appearance in the McClure Lecture Series and the sixth time a U.S. Supreme Court justice has presented the lecture. Henry Blackmun delivered it in 1982, Sandra Day O'Connor in 1988 and Clarence Thomas in 1995.
The series was established by James McClure Jr. of Sardis and Tupper McClure Lampton of Columbia in honor of their father, a Sardis attorney and UM law school alumnus.
by Angela Moore
I'm getting ready to graduate from 1.25's to 1.5's and I expect it's not going to get any better. :-}
And has it not since been amended to change that?
It is, it's called the amendment process. Smart fellows those founding fathers, they anticipated living, breathing, leftist jurists who know better than the rest of us.
It's your lucky day! How convienient that the Constitution comes with a clearly defined method of being updated. If part of the Constitution is out-dated, it should be amended.
So hop to it, buddy. Get your anti-neanderthal amendment rolling along so that citizens can have a vote on it.
Othewise, go back to DU.
Silly me.
"I wanted to take the opportunity to speak up for those who are unwilling or unable to speak up for themselves," Kelly said.
(Ahem) He's Pro-Life I assume?
Nope, it means your Constitutionally challenged and hopefully eminently educable.
Arguing that the Constitution is open to open-ended, uncontrolled, un-constitutional tinkering when a method of changing said document already exists means that you haven't thought your arguement all the way through, meaning you are ignorant, or you have thought it all the way through and are simply anti-constitution, meaning you are a leftist.
Being a democrat just confirms which one.
And for the record, I'm not attacking you personally. I'm attacking all wrong-headed, treasonous leftists at once. You are just a convienient target.
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