Justice Antonin G. Scalia has thrown sharp barbs at 7^th Circuit Judge Richard Posner in their ongoing public spat about the role of history in legal interpretation. But last week he took a softer approach in mocking the now infamous review Posner wrote of Scalia’s latest book.

As you recall, Posner questioned the wisdom of basing legal interpretations on merely text and history in his critical review in The New Republic of the book “Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts,” which Scalia authored with Bryan Garner. The review has led to some public bickering – via media outlets – between the esteemed jurists. In one interview, Scalia went so far as to say Posner lied in asserting that Scalia relied on legislative history in his opinion in the Second Amendment case DC v. Heller. Posner responded with a two-page letter to Reuters defending his claim.

But at event last week in Washington  hosted by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Scalia took a more gentle approach in keeping the public feud going.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2012 at 7:16 am and is filed under Antonin Scalia, Supreme Court. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.