What is Antonin Scalia's judicial philosophy?

Answer 1

Justice Antonin Scalia is a conservative. He is one of two justices on the court (the other being Clarence Thomas) who believe in the philosophy of constitutional originalism, that the Constitution should be interpreted solely in terms of the framers original intent.

An originalist believes that the words in the constitution mean what they meant when they were written. This is in contrast to the philosophy of the living constitution, which is the viewpoint of the majority of constitutional scholars and is practiced by the other seven members of the court. Those who believe in the living constitution view the words in the document to evolve over time as opinions change. They would mean what people would generally to consider them to mean at the time the particular dispute arises.

So for example, if a case come up challenging a punishment as "cruel and unusual" (prohibited by the 8th amendment) originalists like Scalia would look at what the founding fathers felt were cruel and unusual and if he felt the punishment would have been approved by the founders then he would find the punishment being challenged as constitutional. The justices with the living constitution philosophy, on the other hand, would look to see whether the particular punishment fit into what society generally considers to be cruel and unusual. Since the founding fathers were much more tolerant of very severe forms of punishment than people generally are today, Scalia would be more likely to rule that a particular punishment is constitutional than the justices who believe in the living constitution.

The originalism philosophy more often than not results in a more conservative result. However, this isn't always the case. For example, because Scalia and Thomas believe the founding fathers had a broad meaning for the confrontation clause they often rule that defendants have greater rights to confront witnesses at trial than the living constitution justices. Scalia has ruled that prosecutors cannot allow witnesses to testify by closed circuit television in place of live testimony.

The two originalists also voted that that the confrontation clause gives defendants a constitutional right to call to the stand lab specialists who made routine findings rather than allow the prosecutors to simply submit a report. In both of these instances, some of the justices who are normally considered to be more liberal took positions more conservative than Scalia.