Christopher Jones, B. and Sarat, A. (2017) Justices as “sacred symbols”: Antonin Scalia and the cultural life of the law. British Journal of American Legal Studies, 6 (1). pp. 7-23. ISSN 2049-4092
Abstract
Perhaps no single judge in recent years has embodied the intricacies and difficulties of the cultural life of the law as much as American Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. While common law judges have traditionally acquired status—and cultural relevance—from the significance, eloquence and forcefulness of their judicial opinions, Justice Scalia took an altogether different route. Both on and off the bench, he pushed the limits of legal and political legitimacy. He did this through a strict adherence to what we call a “judicial mandate,” flamboyant but engaging writing, biting humor and widespread marketing of his originalist and textualist interpretative theories. This article chronicles these features of Scalia’s jurisprudence and public life more generally, ultimately characterising the late justice as a “sacred symbol” in American legal and political circles, and beyond.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 Brian Christopher Jones, Austin Sarat, published by De Gruyter Open. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0 |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Law (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 22 Jan 2020 14:25 |
Last Modified: | 22 Jan 2020 14:25 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Walter de Gruyter GmbH |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1515/bjals-2017-0002 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:155382 |