Antonin Scalia, SCOTUS

Justice Antonin Scalia Reported Dead Of Natural Causes In West Texas

Antonin Scalia was found dead

By  
on

Scalia wikiIf microbial life were found on Mars, it wouldn’t have as big of an impact on the life of an average American as this. Twitter is BLOWING UP with the news that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has been found dead at a ranch in West Texas. Texas Governor Greg Abbott has confirmed the news. From My San Antonio:

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia was found dead of apparent natural causes Saturday on a luxury resort in West Texas, federal officials said.

Scalia, 79, was a guest at the Cibolo Creek Ranch, a resort in the Big Bend region south of Marfa.

According to a report, Scalia arrived at the ranch on Friday and attended a private party with about 40 people. When he did not appear for breakfast, a person associated with the ranch went to his room and found a body.

U.S. District Judge Fred Biery said he was among those notified about Scalia’s death.

“I was told it was this morning,” Biery said of Scalia’s death. “It happened on a ranch out near Marfa. As far as the details, I think it’s pretty vague right now as to how,” he said. “My reaction is it’s really unfortunate with any death. And now, politically, in the presidential cycle we’re in my educated guess is nothing will happen before the next president is elected.”

Can we let the man’s body get cold before we start speculating about his successor?

…

Okay, that’ll do.

I imagine it’ll be a cold day in hell before a Republican Congress lets a Democratic lame-duck President name the successor to Antonin freaking Scalia. So… this Presidential election just got a lot more interesting.

UPDATE:

Sponsored

Now that I’ve picked my jaw back up off the floor, let’s talk current cases. This term there are a lot of controversial cases at the Supreme Court bar that were thought to be close, 5-4 decisions. Without Scalia… one assumes that those cases will come down 4-4? And 4-4 will create a “holding pattern” of sorts. Tie goes to the Lower Court ruling.

In Fisher v. Texas, the affirmative action case, the Court is already down a member because Elena Kagan has recused herself from that case. Could affirmative-action get overturned in this country on a 4-3 decision? It could happen!

UPDATE

The name popping all over is Sri Srinivasan. Srinivasan was confirmed 97-0 to the D.C. Circuit in just 2013. One would think that his credentials would be unassailable, but, again, I wouldn’t expect the Senate to do anything other than wait it out. The Supreme Court is just going to be shorthanded for a while.

UPDATE

Sponsored

The television is saying that Scalia was on vacation, hunting with friends. Last night, he complained of not feeling well before he went to bed. In the morning, Scalia did not show up for breakfast but the hunting party went out without him. When they came back they checked on Scalia, and found him unresponsive.

UPDATE

Chief Justice John Roberts has a statement out. I’m grabbing it from Jake Tapper’s Twitter account.

Roberts statement on Scalia

UPDATE

Take our poll, what opinion will you remember most?

What was Justice Scalia's most impactful opinion?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

UPDATE

Well, the battle lines have been clearly drawn:

Ted Cruz on Scalia

Clinton on Scalia

Oh, we’re not dysfunctional at all. ENVY OF THE FREE WORLD over here.

UPDATE

President Obama said that he will fulfill his constitutional responsibilities and nominate a successor for Antonin Scalia.

UPDATE

The Republican Debate opened with Scalia questions. Trump said that the President had the right to nominate somebody, but the Senate should “delay, delay, delay.” So… he’s for obstructionism, I guess. Trump at least had the humility, yes humility, to say that it didn’t matter whether he wanted Obama to nominate somebody, because he was going to do it.

Carson got the authority to nominate a justice wrong. Then backtracked and cleaned it up on a later question.

John Kasich said that Obama should “put the country first.” But somehow in Kasich’s view, putting the country first doesn’t involve Obama (and Congress) executing their Constitutional duties. Instead putting the country first involves letting the country not have a full Supreme Court until… whenever a new president gets around to running the country again.

Marcio Rubio V:4.0 said that Obama shouldn’t nominate anybody. He didn’t really give a reason why beyond politics.

Jeb Bush agreed that Obama had the constitutional authority to do nominate a successor, but that he should nominate a “consensus” candidate. Jeb Bush wins the award for “the reasonable one,” and his brother nominated Harriet Miers.

And Ted Cruz got into a tangle with the moderator about when Anthony Kennedy was nominated and confirmed. The moderator was right and Ted Cruz literally stopped talking for a second like the mere appearance of “facts” was not a possibility he had ever considered. Then he went into a patter about how we couldn’t “let” Obama nominate a liberal.

For those scoring at home: That’s 4 votes for “he shouldn’t,” 1 vote for “only if I like who he nominates,” and 1 vote for “my favorite color is blue… no YELLOW.”

Topics

, , , ,