SCALIA REVEALED

Lost in the uproar of the Supreme Court's decision on prison over crowding in California

(Brown v. Plata) was Judge Scalia's total abandonment of his philosophy of limited, rational, and contextual jurisprudence. In its place was Scalia revealed- a blatant statist who screams loudly when his ox is gored. To wit:

The Scalia that Justice Scalia wants the world to see is a Judge bound by strict interpretation of facts and law. Personal feelings, petty prejudices and biases, or even the "feel-good" jurisprudence of compassion, as averred by Justice Sotomayor in her speeches before her confirmation hearing, fall to Scalia's interpretation of the cold hard facts of the original meaning of the text of the Constitution or the law. The result be damned (innocent people in jail for example) so long as the Judge narrowly and strictly interprets the context of the law.

But then comes along a case that just sends poor Nino over the edge and he abandons it all in his dissent in Brown:

There comes before us, now and then, a case whose proper outcome is so clearly indicated by tradition and common sense, that its decision ought to shape the law, rather than vice versa.

To translate- "every now and then" something just "seems" to be the right result and therefore the Judge's job is to twist the law to reach "the correct" result.

But Rumpole wants to know: "Who or what determines what is the "correct" result?" Activist/sentimental/compassionate judges? Apparently so, as long as the sentiment/compassion yields the result Scalia agrees with.

How do we know that Scalia thinks that sometimes the "right result" must be achieved even when it requires twisting and bending the law by an activist judge? He says so himself!

"One would think that, before allowing the decree of a federal district court to release 46,000 convicted felons, this Court would bend every effort to read the law in such a way as to avoid that outrageous result."

Rumpole says: if you ever doubted that Scalia prays before the altar of the ends justifying the means, just keep re-reading that sentence.

Once again, just so there's no mistake about this- when Scalia's ox is gored he has no problem becoming an activist Judge interpreting a "living Constitution" so long as the twisting and bending and interpreting "avoids" "an outrageous result."

And what is "an outrageous result?" In Scalia's mind it is apparently releasing healthy and muscle bound males into society. When this happens we believe you will find Nino stacking chairs against the doors to his chambers so that the fairer sex are not ravaged by men "with intimidating muscles." Who knew the Justice was so easily scared? We guess he flips quickly through the cable channels that carry professional wrestling and that you will not find him at the Supreme Court gym pushing out another set of "lats" "pecs" or "tri's".

"Most of them will not be prisoners with medical conditions or severe mental illness; and many will undoubtedly be fine physical specimens who have developed intimidating muscles pumping iron in the prison gym."

In Scalia's world, a prison system that stands by while its inmates die of untreated hypertension or that leaves its mentally ill inmates in puddles of feces and urine is a mere inconvenience in light of the fearsome effect of incarceration on an inmate's musculature system. For Scalia its all about not being unlucky enough to be convicted, because your case (or your actual innocence even if facing execution) is something to be twisted and turned by the whims of activist judges seeking to avoid scary results.

Read what you want into Nino's dissent in Brown, just don't ever argue to us again that he is a man driven by an adherence to a judicial philosophy regardless of the results, because that just ain't so.

The emperor has no clothes and the release of muscle bound inmates so scares Scalia that he is willing to do anything to prevent it, even abandon his veneer of philosophical jurist.