Scalia on persuasion and dissent
The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has an interview with Justice Scalia. Scalia has a long view od the law and history:
"Who do you think I’m writing my dissents for? I’m writing for the next generation and for law students. You know, read this and see if you want to go down that road. We’d be better off on all sorts of issues – on legislative history, on originalism. But I’m not going to persuade my colleagues and I’m not going to persuade most of the federal bench. They’ve had this so-called living Constitution stuff, you know, from the time they were in law school. That’s not going to change. But maybe the next generation will see the advantages of going back to the way we used to do things."
Parts One and Two have been posted. I'll put part Three up when available.
"Who do you think I’m writing my dissents for? I’m writing for the next generation and for law students. You know, read this and see if you want to go down that road. We’d be better off on all sorts of issues – on legislative history, on originalism. But I’m not going to persuade my colleagues and I’m not going to persuade most of the federal bench. They’ve had this so-called living Constitution stuff, you know, from the time they were in law school. That’s not going to change. But maybe the next generation will see the advantages of going back to the way we used to do things."
Parts One and Two have been posted. I'll put part Three up when available.
Thanks for posting these. I would have missed them. The ABA Journal has a pretty good joint interview of Scalia and Garner, along with some excerpts from their book.
I've read Scalia's A Matter of Interpretation, attended three of Garner's seminars, and bought and studied several of Garner's books on legal writing. And I give out Garner's Modern American Usage as gifts to college-bound high-school graduates, along with a good dictionary.
I was pleased to see that Scalia and Garner had co-authored a book (which I ordered from Amazon today).
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