Scalia Defends ‘Immovable’ Constitution

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, speaking in Los Angeles on Thursday, vigorously defended his belief that the Constitution should be interpreted literally.

In an address to 900 people at a packed ballroom in a downtown hotel, Scalia blasted those who seek to read new rights--such as abortion--into the Constitution. He said that such an “evolutionist” approach to constitutional interpretation strips the document of the “immovable” power it should have in a democracy.

He decried the growth of that approach over the last 40 years. “When I was a young man and you got mad, people pounded the table and said, “There ought to be a law,” said Scalia, 60. “I haven’t heard that in years. Now when people get mad they say, ‘It’s unconstitutional.’ ”

Scalia lashed out in particular at decisions that have broadened the scope of the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment. In a sarcastic tone, he twice repeated words from one of those decisions, which declared that the meaning of cruel and unusual punishment has changed due to “evolving standards that reflect a maturing society.”

The justice proclaimed that the authors of the Constitution were not so “Pollyannaish” to believe that “we’re getting better and better every day. . . . They wanted some things that were immovable.”

Scalia frequently drew laughter from the audience, particularly when he likened a popular TV advertising slogan--”It’s in there”--to the views of judges who find in the Constitution new rights not specifically listed there.

Considered one of the high court’s most conservative jurists, Scalia has long been known as a champion of the “original interpretation” school of constitutional analysis. But he contended Thursday that this is an issue that transcends liberal-conservative lines.

To buttress this point, Scalia knocked his Supreme Court colleagues for two 1996 decisions--one applauded by liberals, the other applauded by conservatives--on which he cast a dissenting vote.

He lambasted the court’s ruling that gays and lesbians may not be singled out for official discrimination simply because of “animus” toward their sexual orientation. And he blasted the court’s decision striking down a $2-million punitive damages verdict as so “grossly excessive” as to be unconstitutional. Scalia said he, too, was dismayed by excessive jury awards, but added that “I don’t know which amendment” contains that interpretation of due process.

To those who have followed Scalia’s decisions and other writing, including his recent book, “A Matter of Interpretation,” there was nothing surprising about his speech. However, despite the great relish with which Scalia delivered his remarks, the justice apparently was not eager for his speech to be heard beyond the ballroom of the Intercontinental Hotel.

Scalia’s address was sponsored by Town Hall, the 60-year-old civic organization that provides a public forum for a wide range of speakers. However, Town Hall President Adrian Medawar said that Scalia had asked that no reporters be admitted.

“As a Supreme Court justice, he has requested this of us and it has put us in a real bind,” Medawar said. She said that Town Hall wouldn’t bar anyone from buying a ticket, but added that the event was sold out.

A Times reporter attended the event after purchasing a $42 ticket made available when a reservation was canceled.

After Scalia finished his speech, two security personnel saw the reporter’s tape recorder and attempted to confiscate the tape, saying Scalia had given orders that he did not want the speech taped. The tape was not relinquished.

Toni House, the Supreme Court spokeswoman, would make only a brief comment: “As a rule, my experience is that while the justice does not want television cameras covering his speeches, he has never been averse to reporters being there.”

Supreme Court justices have historically been camera shy, barring televising or photographing their proceedings. In 1993, Justice Harry Blackmun canceled a graduation speech at UC Davis Law School after the school refused his request to bar television coverage of the address.

Legal scholars as well as the leader of a media advocacy group decried any attempt to bar coverage of a justice’s speech in a public forum.

“When a justice of the Supreme Court gives a public speech, members of the public are interested in what he has to say,” said Jane Kirtley of the Washington-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “In a genuine way, barring the media is barring a substantial portion of the population--simple as that.”

New York University law professor Steve Gillers called the proposed media ban “an unfortunate exclusion. It does not reflect well on the speaker or his hosts if journalists are excluded because they are journalists.”

Los Angeles lawyer Robert Bonner, who is on Town Hall’s board of governors and invited Scalia to make the speech, gave a benign interpretation to the judge’s attempt to keep reporters away. Bonner, a former U.S. attorney and federal judge here, was sworn in by Scalia when he became head of the Drug Enforcement Administration in 1990.

“He is sensitive to how his colleagues would perceive him if they thought he was grandstanding for the media in any way,” Bonner said. “I know he is averse to press coverage for that reason. . . . He was insistent that there be no television cameras of any kind. He was insistent that media not be invited. He would probably be mortified that you are doing a story about this.”