Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia died Saturday at age 79. Senior Editor Damon Root considers Scalia’s legacy when it comes to liberty and the Constitution:
Despite his reputation as a right-wing culture warrior, Scalia was equally outspoken in other areas of the law that are commonly (if erroneously) associated with the legal left. When it came to the Fourth Amendment and its protections against unreasonable searches and seizures, for instance, Scalia frequently led the way in rejecting the pro-government interpretations favored by state and federal law enforcement….
Unfortunately, however, it must also be said that Justice Scalia did not always practice the originalist philosophy he liked to preach. Most notably, when the Supreme Court was asked in 2010 to examine the original meaning of the 14th Amendment in the gun rights case McDonald v. Chicago, Scalia not only backtracked on originalism; he actually mocked the libertarian lawyer Alan Gura for daring to ask the Supreme Court to seriously address the original meaning of the 14th Amendment in the first place.
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