Antonin Scalia

Is this the shape of things to come?: "BREYER, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which STEVENS, O'CONNOR, KENNEDY, SOUTER, and GINSBURG, JJ., joined. THOMAS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which REHNQUIST, C. J., and SCALIA, J., joined."That's the language at the end of a Supreme Court opinion issued last week in which six moderate to liberal justices out-voted three conservatives in a habeas corpus case. In so doing they seem to have changed the law in this area -- at least slightly and maybe more so. They definitely changed the tone of the constitutional argument on this issue, putting fairness above finality in the habeas debate.

WASHINGTON -- David Wolf's passion is constitutional law; his hobby is collecting. So when the Washington lawyer discovered a listing on eBay that would round out one of his collections, he forked over $2,100. It was for a limited-edition, 8-inch poly-resin bobblehead of the late U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. "I don't know if I can explain it," said Wolf. "I'm obsessive." Wolf also paid more than $800 for a Justice John Paul Stevens bobblehead after he realized that the one he owned was missing the small golf club in the figurine's right hand.

Keith Hudson got into an argument with another prisoner at Louisiana State Prison. Two correctional officers handcuffed and shackled him, removed him, unresisting, from his cell and beat and kicked him. By any definition of the word, that was "punishment." By any informed contemporary definition of the word, it was "cruel." Therefore, it seems clear to us, as it did to seven members of the most conservative Supreme Court in nearly 60 years, it was a violation of the Bill of Rights' ban on "cruel and unusual punishment."

CHICAGO -- President Bush's nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the U.S. Supreme Court was supposed to set off a war. After the smooth, smiling, bulletproof John G. Roberts Jr., Judge Alito looked like a fat target for Democrats. A sitting judge with a long paper trail, he had the reputation of being as conservative as Justice Antonin Scalia -- and he would replace a moderate, Sandra Day O'Connor. Interest groups on both sides were primed for all-out combat. But two months later, the looming war looks more like a paintball contest: a choreographed romp that may leave the antagonists a bit spattered but will spill no blood.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court put new restrictions yesterday on prison guards' use of force to control unruly inmates, saying it is unconstitutional for guards to cause pain intentionally even if no serious injury results.The ruling came on a 7-2 vote, with new Justice Clarence Thomas issuing a strongly worded dissent that laid out a deeply conservative view of prisoners' rights.Mr. Thomas, in his first opinion as a member of the court dealing with an inmate rights' claim, protested vehemently over the court's repeated use of the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment" to protect inmates against harsh conditions inside prison.

GOV. DOUGLAS WILDER of Virginia said that Clarence Thomas' Catholicism raised the issue of "how much allegiance" he would owe "to the pope?"Actually, Thomas is an Episcopalian. So the question is, "how much allegiance would he owe to Ralph Lauren?"The Catholicism of Supreme Court justices has seldom been an issue. Of course, there haven't been many -- 8 of 105. Two of those sit today -- Antonin Scalia (appointed 1986) and Anthony Kennedy (1988). William Brennan, who retired in 1989, is also a Catholic.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, in a major setback for creditors, ruled 5-4 yesterday that federal judges may not freeze the available assets of a company that is in debt to make sure it can pay off if it loses a case in court.If a company's assets are not pledged to anyone as security, the majority decided, a federal judge cannot stop the company from using those assets to pay off favored creditors, rather than holding the property until the court case is decided.A creditor who has sued over a debt but has not yet won the case, the majority said, has no right to have a court freeze the debtor's property in the meantime -- even if the creditor's claim is so strong that it almost surely will win in court and even if a victory would turn out to be worthless without a freeze.

WASHINGTON - First Amendment experts yesterday questioned the legal basis for a deputy U.S. marshal - who was apparently acting on the orders of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia - to confiscate and erase tape recordings made by two reporters invited to hear the justice speak at a high school gymnasium. The experts questioned not only Scalia's practice of barring recordings of remarks made in public, but also whether the seizure violated a federal law intended to shield journalists from having notes or records confiscated by officials.

WASHINGTON -- One day after a Picasso painting, "Nude on a Black Armchair," drew the handsome price of $45 million at a New York auction, the Supreme Court spent an hour yesterday as an art critic of sorts, pondering nudity in a different, and cheaper, form.The court held a hearing on the constitutional rules that would govern public displays of nudity by nightclub dancers -- a more "lowbrow kind of art," as one justice put it.Lowbrow though it may be, nude dancing is now a popular form of entertainment in some 3,000 clubs nationwide -- clubs that, one lawyer said yesterday, generate more revenue than all stage plays and dramas in the country combined.

WASHINGTON -- David Wolf's passion is constitutional law; his hobby is collecting. So when the Washington lawyer discovered a listing on eBay that would round out one of his collections, he forked over $2,100. It was for a limited-edition, 8-inch poly-resin bobblehead of the late U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. "I don't know if I can explain it," said Wolf. "I'm obsessive." Wolf also paid more than $800 for a Justice John Paul Stevens bobblehead after he realized that the one he owned was missing the small golf club in the figurine's right hand.

Samuel Anthony Alito Jr., from early in his judicial career, has been likened to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia -- they're both Italian-Americans, both born in Trenton, N.J., both cut from a conservative cloth. In liberal circles where it isn't meant as a compliment, Alito long ago earned the nickname "Scalito," literally translated as "Little Scalia." So yesterday, when Alito was introduced as President Bush's nominee to replace retiring Sandra Day O'Connor on the same bench as Scalia, the comparisons began anew.

Here are eight people who could be considered to fill the Supreme Court seat vacated by the death of Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist: SAMUEL ALITO Age: 55 School: Yale Law School Background: Deputy assistant attorney general under President Ronald Reagan, U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey. Currently: Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit (appointed 1990). EXPANDED BIO Alito has earned the conservative stripes that put him into the running for a Supreme Court vacancy.

BOSTON - How did we end the summer on such a prickly little piece of the political landscape - stuck between a Roberts and a hard place? We've spent months pouring over 60,000 pages from the National Archives and reams of personal profiles for clues about how Judge John G. Roberts Jr. would rule on the highest court in the land. And all we got from this paper trail is a handful of confetti. The record shows him arguing both for and against affirmative action, for and against environment regulations.

President Bush and his White House staff typically say little when asked about possible Supreme Court nominees. There is no opening on the court, they point out, so there is no reason to talk about replacements. But amid rampant speculation that Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist will announce his retirement when the court finishes its term this month, the president offered a hint this week of how he would fill the seat. "I look forward to talking to members of the Senate about the Supreme Court process, to get their opinions as well, and will do so," President Bush said at a news conference Tuesday.

WASHINGTON - President Bush put a positive face yesterday on a Senate compromise on his judicial nominees, while conservative groups that form the core of his base condemned it as a bitter defeat that undermines his authority and could weaken his hand in choosing the next Supreme Court justice. Bush focused on the immediate fruits of the deal: a guarantee that three of his judges will receive yes-or-no votes. "It's about time," Bush said, adding that he was "pleased that the Senate is moving forward on my judicial nominees who were previously being blocked."

WASHINGTON - First Amendment experts yesterday questioned the legal basis for a deputy U.S. marshal - who was apparently acting on the orders of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia - to confiscate and erase tape recordings made by two reporters invited to hear the justice speak at a high school gymnasium. The experts questioned not only Scalia's practice of barring recordings of remarks made in public, but also whether the seizure violated a federal law intended to shield journalists from having notes or records confiscated by officials.

FIVE days before two teen-agers went on a murderous shooting rampage in a Colorado high school, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told a group of students at the Park School in Baltimore County that if he had his way, people would have more -- not less -- access to deadly weapons.At a small luncheon following his speech to 300 students there, Justice Scalia said that citizens have a right to own machine guns, said Jessica Munitz, a 17-year-old Park senior.Pressing the outer limits of his thinking on this matter, Jessica -- who has earned early admission to Princeton University -- said she asked Justice Scalia if he thought people should also "be allowed to have hand-held rockets that can bring down airplanes."

The tactics of amusement park security forces -- addressed in this space recently with stories about two Maryland women falsely accused of writing bad checks at Paramount's Kings Dominion -- should spook anyone who thinks the Constitution was, and still is, a good idea. Many of these big parks, owned by media conglomerates, operate by their own set of rules and police standards, and that's causing grief (and litigation) in several corners of the nation.The latest of several reports on the subject comes from California, where the Orange County Register found more than 30 people who claimed recent abuse at the hands of Disneyland security.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court - minus Justice Antonin Scalia - agreed yesterday to decide whether a public school's daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance to "one nation under God" is an exercise in patriotism or an official endorsement of religion. The eight justices will hear arguments on the issue early next year, and a decision is expected by late June. Scalia, one of the court's most conservative justices, withdrew from the case, apparently because of his public comments in January about God and the pledge.

BOSTON - As someone who makes a living telling people what she thinks, I am aware that opinion-mongering is a dicey business. Even the dictionary offers this slippery definition: "a belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof." Of course, it's a problem if you're discussing cilantro or the Red Sox. It's more unsettling when you're talking about the law. So when the Supreme Court ended with a bang, it left some queasiness behind. In the affirmative action case especially, there's been a good deal of conversation about the gap between Sandra Day O'Connor and Clarence Thomas.