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03/15/2005
AP
protests treatment of photographers covering U.S. Justice
Scalia's March 14 speech in Washington
Associated Press
Washington Chief of Bureau Sandy Johnson has sent to U.S.
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia a letter protesting his
shooing away photographers from his March 14 speech, a public
event, five minutes into his remarks. The letter, below, is
followed by the AP story on the 35-minute speech at the Woodrow
Wilson Center in Washington, D.C.
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March 14, 2005
The Honorable Antonin Scalia
The Supreme Court of the United States
Dear Mr. Justice Scalia,
I write to object to your dismissal today of still photographers
covering your speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center. An Associated
Press photographer was among them.
The still photographers were doing their jobs just as surely
as the TV and print journalists in the room. Other newsmakers,
including the President of the United States, tolerate the
whirring of cameras at their public events.
This is not the first time you have shooed photographers away
from an event open to press coverage. We sincerely and respectfully
hope it will be the last.
Regards,
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March 14, 2005
BC-Scalia
Scalia criticizes court's juvenile death penalty ruling as
politics
By HOPE YEN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Justice Antonin Scalia criticized the Supreme
Court's recent decision to strike down the juvenile death
penalty, calling it the latest example of politics on the
court that has made judicial nominations an increasingly bitter
process.
In a 35-minute speech Monday, Scalia said unelected judges
have no place deciding issues such as abortion and the death
penalty. The court's 5-4 ruling March 1 to outlaw the juvenile
death penalty based on "evolving notions of decency"
was simply a mask for the personal policy preferences of the
five-member majority, he said.
"If you think aficionados of a living Constitution want
to bring you flexibility, think again," Scalia told an
audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center, a Washington think
tank. "You think the death penalty is a good idea? Persuade
your fellow citizens to adopt it. You want a right to abortion?
Persuade your fellow citizens and enact it. That's flexibility."
"Why in the world would you have it interpreted by nine
lawyers?" he said.
Scalia, who has been mentioned as a possible chief justice
nominee should Chief Justice William Rehnquist retire, outlined
his judicial philosophy of interpreting the Constitution according
to its text, as understood at the time it was adopted.
Citing the example of abortion, he said unelected justices
too often choose to read new rights into the Constitution,
at the expense of the democratic process.
"Abortion is off the democratic stage. Prohibiting it
is unconstitutional, now and forever, coast to coast, until
I guess we amend the Constitution," said Scalia, who
was appointed to the court by President Reagan in 1986.
He blamed Chief Justice Earl Warren, who presided from 1953-69
over a court that assaulted racial segregation and expanded
individual rights against arbitrary government searches, for
the increased political role of the Supreme Court, citing
Warren's political background. Warren was governor of California
and the Republican vice presidential nominee in 1948.
"You have a chief justice who was a governor, a policy-maker,
who approached the law with that frame of mind. Once you have
a leader with that mentality, it's hard not to follow,"
Scalia said, in response to a question from the audience.
Scalia said increased politics on the court will create a
bitter nomination fight for the next Supreme Court appointee,
since judges are now more concerned with promoting their personal
policy preferences rather than interpreting the law.
"If we're picking people to draw out of their own conscience
and experience a 'new' Constitution, we should not look principally
for good lawyers. We should look to people who agree with
us," he said, explaining that's why senators increasingly
probe nominees for their personal views on positions such
as abortion.
"When we are in that mode, you realize we have rendered
the Constitution useless," Scalia said.
Scalia, who has had a prickly relationship with the media,
wasted no time in shooing away photographers from the public
event five minutes into his speech.
"Could we stop the cameras? I thought I announced ...
a couple are fine at first, but click click click click,"
Scalia said, impatiently waving the photographers off.
During a speech last year in Hattiesburg, Miss., a deputy
federal marshal demanded that an Associated Press reporter
and another journalist erase recordings of the justice's remarks.
The justice later apologized. The government conceded that
the U.S. Marshals Service violated federal law in the confrontation
and said the reporters and their employers were each entitled
to $1,000 in damages and attorneys' fees.
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