Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died Saturday in Texas.
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia died Saturday in Texas.
The San Antonio Express-News first reported Scalia was found dead of apparent natural causes Saturday on a luxury resort in West Texas, citing federal officials.
He was 79 years old.
Justice Antonin Scalia's passing is a loss for the Supreme Court and the nation.
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) February 13, 2016
Praying for Justice Scalia's family and all who cherished this brilliant jurist and champion of our Constitution.
— Governor Mike Pence (@GovPenceIN) February 13, 2016
Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey, but his family moved to Queens, New York when he was young. He was valedictorian of his high school class and got his bachelor's degree from Georgetown, where he was also named valedictorian. He then went to Harvard Law, became the Notes Editor for the Harvard Law Review and was once again named valedictorian.
He first entered public service in the 1970s as general counsel for President Richard Nixon and as the assistant attorney general. Scalia was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986 under President Ronald Reagan.
Following the news of Justice Scalia's passing, Governor Greg Abbott, R-Texas, released the following statement:
"Justice Antonin Scalia was a man of God, a patriot, and an unwavering defender of the written Constitution and the Rule of Law. He was the solid rock who turned away so many attempts to depart from and distort the Constitution. His fierce loyalty to the Constitution set an unmatched example, not just for judges and lawyers, but for all Americans. We mourn his passing, and we pray that his successor on the Supreme Court will take his place as a champion for the written Constitution and the Rule of Law. Cecilia and I extend our deepest condolences to his family, and we will keep them in our thoughts and prayers."
Like all justices, he liked to be in the majority. But Scalia himself said he also liked writing dissents because that justice did not have to pull punches, as the author of the court's majority opinion must sometimes do to ensure his opinion keeps its five votes.
In dissent, Scalia said, he was able to write opinions the way they should be written. He wrote dissents that were entertaining, clear-headed, furious, sarcastic and sometimes just plain mean.
His close friend, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, once said that Scalia was "an absolutely charming man, and he can make even the most sober judge laugh." She said that she urged her friend to tone down his dissenting opinions "because he'll be more effective if he is not so polemical. I'm not always successful."
His candor wasn't limited to the four walls of the high court. During a 2012 visit to Princeton University, a gay freshman asked Scalia about the comparison he had drawn in the past between banning sodomy and banning bestiality and murder.
"If we cannot have moral feelings against or objections to homosexuality, can we have it against anything?" Scalia said in response to the question, according to The Daily Princetonian.
Scalia's impact on the court was muted by his seeming disregard for moderating his views to help build consensus, but he was held in deep affection by his ideological opposites Ginsburg and Elena Kagan. He persuaded Kagan to join him on hunting trips. While on his high school drill team, Scalia carried his rifle in a case on the New York City subways. Decades later, he taught the Upper West Sider Kagan how to shoot a gun.
Scalia and Ginsburg shared a love of opera, and their contrasting views inspired the opera Scalia/Ginsburg by composer Derrick Wang, who said he got the idea while a law student at the University of Maryland.
In one aria, the Scalia character rages about justices who see the Constitution evolving with society.
The operatic Scalia fumes: "The justices are blind. How can they spout this? The Constitution says absolutely nothing about this."
The real-life Scalia certainly agreed.
The last Supreme Court justice to die while serving was Chief Justice William Rehnquist, 80, in September 2005. Rehnquist was the first to die in office since Justice Robert Jackson in 1954 and the first Chief Justice since Fred Vinson in 1953.
The Associated Press contributed to portions of this article.
