Look, this isn’t tough. A frequent criticism on these boards for Scalia is that he figures out how he wants things to come out and then invents a rationale for it.
Here, according to that view, Scalia should have come down against the debtor… yet he was the only dissenting justice, voting FOR the debtor’s best interest and AGAINST the corporations that were owed the debt.
So I’m asking those that have criticized Scalia on that basis to explain this decision.
I’m sure that everyone whose panties were ever in a bunch over any other Justice’s citation of foreign law will be all over this.
In general, I believe the view of Scalia you describe is correct. There have been a few times where he has made a surprising ruling; flag burning comes immediately to mind. However, these instances are very rare. And, in this case, ultimately pointless. I think he’s twisted and delusional enough to do this just to be contrary, or to try to prove a point about how pure his intellectually and morally bankrupt philosophy is. And you bought it hook, line, and sinker.
So he does it, except when he doesn’t do it.
I haven’t made such criticism, and I’ve never heard of anyone (with a respectable opinion of course) that said Scalia ALWAYS and IN EVERY CASE will rule for businesses ALL THE TIME.
And if you’re going to knock down these strawmen you build, funny how you didn’t take on those who accuse the liberal judges of ALWAYS deciding against big business (if those people exist).
Undoubtedly there are such people (who accuse the liberal judges of ALWAYS deciding against big business) but they don’t really populate this message board.
Scalia’s detractors, however, do.
If Scalia is criticized for voting for the result he wants, how do you know that he didn’t vote for the result he wanted in this case? Whose whim did he follow here?
Yes. And when he doesn’t do it, it’s never the deciding vote on a case.
It’s not really that hard to understand. He does it 99% of the time. Your childish attempt at a “gotcha ya” is pathetic.
If I wanted to stoop to your ridiculous method of argument, I might ask you to cite a thread where anyone argued that Scalia “always, forever, and without exception” decides what outcome he wants and then twists the argument to go his way. But I won’t do that, because I’m a grown up.
If I was really cynical - and without reading the case - I’d say Nino saw that there were 8 votes on one side already, so he could vote the other way and not risk changing the case, while at the same time using his vote as an instance of where he sided with the consumer/debtor instead of with the big bad credit card company.
I can hear his speech now, “People accuse me of not standing up for the little guy and favoring the powerful, but look at this case where I was the lone dissenter.”
The short of it is:
bankruptcy code is meant to leave the person(s) filing bankruptcy a vehicle (usually a single one) as a mode of transportation whether or not it is paid for is a key in this particular case.
If they allow you to deduct the payments of the car , why would they not allow ALL potential payments of the car up to the maximum deduction gained by such.
Roberts is the guy who always*votes with business interests. Scalia, most notably in State Farm v. Campbell, sometimes does the right thing for the right reasons.
*maybe not always, but he’s sure much more in the Chamber of Commerce’s their pocket than Scalia.
Kyllo v. US was a 5-4 decision, with Scalia deciding that the government could NOT use thermal imaging to look at a house from the street without a warrant.
Not only was he the deciding vote, but he wrote the opinion.
Going to move the goalposts again?
In this case the “right reason” was his dissent in BMW v. Gore?
So a justice with well over 20 years on the Supreme Court has one decision you can point to which invalidates people’s criticism of him when they are considering the whole body of his decisions?
M’kay…
Even a broken clock is right twice a day (or once if you use military time).
That was one I knew immediately, simply because I would have gone the other way myself.
How many cases are necessary to rebut the presumption? Per Don’t call me Shirley do they all have to be 5-4 cases?
27.8%
Yes. The reason I say he was “right” is that the majority just made stuff up to correspond to what they thought sounded “fair,” and was a blatant attempt to throw a bone to corporate wrongdoers. I’m not sure where Scalia was on Exxon, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see if he was dissenting.
Yes. My argument is that is NOT what Scalia does. He methodically applies his analytical approach to every case, and where it takes him, it takes him. The “liberal wing” is much the worse offender when it comes to saying, in effect, “Here’s the fair decision,” even if the text of the statute doesn’t quite get you there.
Scalia’s decisions often come down on the “conservative” side, but that’s because the “liberal” side seeks a view of the law that expands rights, that has a living Constitution. Scalia thinks the text says what the text says. This is misinterpreted as results-based by people who assume that because they would do it, everyone must be doing it… (“the wicked flee where no man pursueth…”)
Is that 27.8% of the 5-4 decisions?
Yes.