We owed both of them better,” he wrote.
Scalia is a man of many contradictions. An only child, he is the father of nine children. Among them is the phrase that a Justice on the losing side of a case chooses to end their dissent with.“I don’t know of any systematic studies, but it’s clear to me that the Justices know the difference between the two formulations and make deliberate choices about which to use,” he told TIME in an email.“The matters appropriate for this Court’s resolution are only three: Texas’s prohibition of sodomy neither infringes a ‘fundamental right’ (which the Court does not dispute), nor is unsupported by a rational relation to what the Constitution considers a legitimate state interest, nor denies the equal protection of the laws,” he wrote. “The Court has cheated both sides, robbing the winners of an honest victory, and the losers of the peace that comes from a fair defeat. “I dissent.”The court’s two decisions on Obamacare “will publish forever the discouraging truth that the Supreme Court of the United States favors some laws over others, and is prepared to do whatever it takes to uphold and assist its favorites,” he wrote. “I dissent.”“I think of my colleagues who have just criticized the court’s opinion as being ‘profoundly misguided’ — that’s one from (former Justice) John Paul Stevens — or from Scalia ‘this opinion is not to be taken seriously’ and then after saying that, then you end it (with ‘I respectfully dissent’ when) you’ve show no respect at all,” she said. Thirty years after the decision in Morrison v. Olson, questions raised in Justice Antonin Scalia’s lone dissent continue to inform legal debate on separation of powers and the unitary executive. What can today’s law school students learn from Scalia’s dissent? Tough-minded and thick-skinned in public, in private he suffers when attacked.
Some scholars consider Justice Scalia’s dissent to be his finest opinion. “I dissent.”Still, Ginsburg said the “respectfully” line seems like a silly fiction.Within the cloistered world of the nation’s highest court, it’s the little things that get noticed. Often confrontational on … “I dissent.”But the two harshest words he uses to signal his dissatisfaction with the court’s majority are actually pretty plain: “I dissent.”The cases in which Scalia chooses to end with “I dissent” are interesting.On the more polite end, there are a couple variations: “I respectfully dissent.” “With respect, I dissent.” “We respectfully dissent.” There’s a more neutral option, simply ending the piece without a sign-off or ending by noting “I would affirm/reverse the decision of the lower court.”“If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State,” Scalia wrote.