“The nation has lost a great jurist”

Saturday, February 13, 2016, By Ellen Mbuqe

Legal scholars at Syracuse University offer insight on the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. All faculty members are available to comment further. Please contact Robert L. Conrad, Director of Communications at Syracuse University College of Law at 315-443-9536 or rtconrad@syr.edu

Keith J. Bybee, College of Law Professor, Professor of Political Science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, and Director for the Institute for the Study of the Judiciary, Politics and the Media:

  • “A larger-than-life figure who brought an energetic and acerbic writing style to judicial opinions, and who upended conventional expectations of sedate judicial speech. Justice Scalia’s passing injects the Supreme Court into the presidential election in a whole new way and raises the prospect of an intense confirmation battle over his successor.”

Professor Bybee can be reached at kjbybee@maxwell.syr.edu

Tara Helfman, Associate Professor of Law:

  • “The nation has lost a great jurist.  Justice Scalia was committed to the Framers’ view that the judiciary must be ‘the least dangerous branch’ of government.  He believed that activism belonged in the political branches, which are representative of the people, and not in the judiciary, which is not subject to electoral recall.  He was a champion of the originalist approach to constitutional interpretation, which seeks to recover the original meaning of the text.  Whether or not one agrees with Justice’s Scalia’s views on constitutional interpretation, one would be hard pressed to challenge his intellectual integrity.”

Professor Helfman can be reached at tjhelfma@law.syr.edu

Nathan Sales, Associate Professor of Law:

  • “With the force of his powerful intellect and sharp wit, Justice Scalia was the dominant figure on the Supreme Court for a generation.  His advocacy of originalism — the notion that the Constitution should be interpreted according to its meaning when it was adopted — was so influential that even jurists who disagreed with him felt compelled to argue on his own terms.”

Professor Sales can be reached at nasales@law.syr.edu