Above Photo: Mumia Abu-Jamal. (photo: First Run Features)
Note: While the corporate media and bi-partisan elected corporatists are fawning over Justice Scalia’s impact on the direction of the country, the reality is he set the country back on many issues. Among the issues where he reversed progress was creating a fair criminal justice system, ending the death penalty, weakening racism, creating equal rights for women, expanding voting rights and building workers rights. The Democratic Party had the power to stop Scalia from ever serving on the Supreme Court but did not use it.The country would have been better off if Scalia had never served on the Supreme Court. Yes, he was smart and a great debater with his colleagues, but his service was not to all of us but to the wealthy who run the country and he was very willing to twist so called “original intent” into whatever he wanted it to mean. He should be remembered for pushing the US further into oligarchy and inequality. KZ
ustice Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court, famous for his quips and his judicial opinions is no more. The Associate Justice, appointed to the courts by President Regan in 1986, was coming up on his 30th year this September on the bench. He was a controversial figure, and arguably the most intellectually gifted of his colleagues. But it must be said that his brilliance was not at the service of the many but the few.
Law professor Cass Sunstein, in his 2005 book Radicals in Robes, criticized both Scalia and perhaps his closest colleague, Justice Clarence Thomas, for their ‘original intent’ theories. Generally the theory holds anything not explicitly originally written into the constitution was not legitimate law. Such they call both jurists ‘false fundamentalists’ especially for their opposition to affirmative action, on the theory that government could never take race into account. Sunstein argued wasn’t the 13th amendment specifically about race? Wasn’t the Civil War? And didn’t the Reconstruction Congress create institutions specifically for black ex-slaves, like the Freedmen’s Bureau, a financial institution? “To ignore such history” he said, “was disingenuous.”
Writer and scholar Chris Hedges, in his 2006 book American Fascist, identified Scalia as a “dominionist jurist,” or one who used his religious views, not his legal ones to decided cases. Scalia may have lost his greatest ally in the 1992 Planned Parenthood vs. Casey decision when he critiqued O’Connor decision to uphold the abortions. O’Connor, a stickler for decorum, didn’t take kindly to his attack and thereafter moved perceptibly to the left, often becoming the fifth vote for a liberal majority, especially on criminal justice and women’s issues. Scalia, brilliant, opinionated, outspoken and in-your-face was never boring. He knew where he stood and planted his flag there for arch-conservatives. Antonin ‘Nino’ Scalia was in his 79th year of life.
From in Prison Nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.