The Father of Nine : Scalia Is Expected to Reflect Reagan Views

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Antonin Scalia will reflect the values of the President who named him but is unlikely to bend the law just to suit ideology if he is confirmed by the Senate for a place on the Supreme Court.

“He is both politically astute and an intellectual conservative and effective at forging the coalitions within the court to obtain consistent conservative majorities,” said Emory University School of Law Prof. Jonathan Macey.

Scalia’s record with the Supreme Court has been impressive. His opinions have been affirmed on appeal 90% of the time.

Scalia, nominated to the high court by President Reagan today, still must be confirmed by the Senate. He would be the first Italian-American to serve on the court.

Earlier Reagan Appointment

The 50-year-old McLean, Va., resident was named to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia by Reagan in 1982.

Scalia, who was born March 11, 1936, in Trenton, N.J., graduated from Georgetown University in Washington and received his law degree at Harvard, where he was a member of the Harvard Law Review.

He practiced law in Cleveland from 1961 to 1967 at the firm of Jones, Day, Cockley & Reavis. That was his only stint with a private law firm.

From 1967 to 1974, he taught law at the University of Virginia Law School and subsequently taught at Georgetown, the University of Chicago and Stanford University.

During his time at the University of Chicago, he was influenced by the “Chicago School” view that the government should not hamper the free market.

And since joining the District of Columbia appeals court bench, Scalia has been an articulate apostle of judicial restraint.

For example, when the appeals court in 1983 ordered the Food and Drug Administration to examine evidence that drugs used to execute prisoners by lethal injection can cause torturous death, Scalia dissented, calling the decision “a clear intrusion upon the powers that belong to Congress, the executive branch and to the states.”

A Roman Catholic, Scalia is personally opposed to abortion, but has not had any opportunities to rule on the matter at the appeals court, which spends the bulk of its time resolving regulatory matters from federal government agencies.

In his opinions, Scalia has frequently sided with the Reagan Administration.

In March, 1985, he wrote one opinion forbidding war veterans who were unhappy with Veterans Administration rulings on disability claims to appeal those rulings to higher authorities.

And just last month he joined with the four other Reagan appointees on the appeals court in voting to review a panel ruling that gave Japanese-Americans detained in camps during World War II the right to sue the United States for damages in court.

In September, 1985, Scalia led a 2-1 panel in ruling that there is no constitutional right allowing the public to have quick access to possibly confidential documents in civil trials.

Scalia said reporters have “no First Amendment entitlement to a document-by-document determination of the need for confidentiality” until a trial is over.

Scalia married the former Maureen McCarthy in 1960. The couple have nine children.