Maryland Conservatarian

Yesterday I attended a speech by Justice Scalia as part of a conference on the “Outsourcing of American Law”. Even a casual observer could be aware of the recent trend of references to foreign law that have begun to pop up in Supreme Court decisions (most famously, Justice Kennedy’s opinion in Roper v. Simmons). The 5 ½ hour conference was free, open to the public and even came with lunch. The cast of commentators and participants also included, among others, John Yoo, the author of the so-called terror memo and Andy McCarthy of NRO. But make no mistake – the star of the afternoon was Justice Scalia.

He talked for about 40-minutes and, as one would expect from him, gave a well-reasoned synopsis on when he saw foreign law reliance or use as appropriate and when he didn’t. He then took questions.

Well, here things kind of went awry. Strategically placed throughout the audience of well over a hundred people were some young people of unknown ideology (I’m guessing LaRouche-ites but they never said) who annoyingly kept getting called on. They would start on some ramble that had no resemblance to a question, somehow get Dick Cheney’s name in there before Justice Scalia would simply have to move on in the search of someone who might resemble intelligent life.

I don’t know how this is playing in the press reports or for those who watched it on C-Span but…. These irritants were clearly not there to engage in a debate or discussion on the day’s topic. Justice Scalia exhibited a patience toward them that probably exceeded that of 90% of the room and is to be commended for sharing his thoughts on such a timely and hot-button topic.