Some of you may recall our coverage (here and here) of Justice Antonin Scalia's recent talk to promote his new book, Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges. The event took place here in Washington, D.C., in early June. As you can tell from our write-ups, we enjoyed the evening greatly (and will always treasure our signed copy of Justice Scalia's book).

But not everyone left a happy camper. We received a heartfelt letter from an ATL correspondent whom we shall refer to only as "Nino Fanboy." He sent the following letter to Justice Scalia, on the day following the event. We received a copy more recently. It begins:

Dear Justice Scalia:

I attended your book signing [on June 3rd] sponsored by the Federalist Society. For years now I've been a fond fan of yours. I would even call you my intellectual hero. I've always admired your charm and wit. But last night my image of you turned sour.

Several years ago I purchased a copy of A Matter of Interpretation [Justice Scalia's 1997 book]. It has been a source of inspiration to me. I consider myself an ardent defender of Originalism. I attend the Catholic University, Columbus School of Law, and have engaged in several debates with classmates on the proper role of the courts and the best method of interpretation.

I bought a copy of A Matter of Interpretation (from which you received royalties) in the hopes that one day I would meet you and you would sign it. Last night I thought I'd found my opportunity. But I was waived [sic] away by you like a servant to a "philosopher king."

Read the rest of Nino Fanboy's strangely moving letter -- this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg -- after the jump.

We aim for maximum accuracy around here, even as to trivial matters. So we bring you this correction to yesterday's post, about Justice Antonin Scalia's recent chance encounter with the Sex and the City star, Sarah Jessica Parker.

From Tony Mauro, writing at the BLT:

According to [an item in New York magazine], Scalia rushed over to the "Sex and the City" star and gushed about how he loves her show and could not wait to see the movie version, which debuted recently. And then, the magazine reported, Scalia bummed a cigarette from the star. The item also said a Court spokeswoman confirmed the meeting.

The version from inside the Court, corroborated by a source in New York who witnessed the encounter and wants to remain nameless, is quite different. Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg says she did confirm the meeting, but not the details that the magazine offered. In reality, Arberg said, Justice Scalia did not need a cigarette. But when Parker asked for a light for hers, he provided it (as any Old World-style gentleman like Scalia would, we might add).

No offense to Parker, but Arberg also confirms that when the two first met on the sidewalk, Scalia did not know who Parker was. After introductions, Scalia realized her identity, but Arberg said, "Her work did not come up in the conversation." In other words, the justice did not gush.

Does this version make Justice Scalia look better, or worse? On the one hand, removal of the judicial "gushing" makes Nino appear more dignified (and he's all about upholding the dignity of the courts, which is why he abhors contractions in legal writing).

On the other hand, it's a trifle embarrassing that Justice Scalia didn't immediately recognize SJP. Maybe he needs to get out more? And speaking to the Federalist Society doesn't count.

The Truth About Justice Scalia and Sarah Jessica Parker [The BLT: Blog of the Legal Times]

Earlier: The Eyes of the Law: Scalia, J., Hearting Sex and the City

At his talk last week before the Federalist Society here in Washington, Justice Antonin Scalia casually alluded to interviewing a clerkship applicant "just the other day." One could sense the ears of hundreds of summer associates perking up at his passing mention of that coveted clerkship.

Justice Scalia's offhand remark confirmed what we've been hearing through the grapevine. Nino has started interviewing potential law clerks for October Term 2009 -- and he's started hiring, too. We've confirmed that he has hired Katherine Twomey, a 2008 graduate of UVA Law School, who will be clerking for Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson (4th Cir.) before heading off to One First Street.

Is Justice Scalia moving early? Not terribly. It's true, of course, that the OT 2009 crop of clerks won't start for over a year. The Court is still busy handing down its biggest opinions for October Term 2007, and the October Term 2008 clerks have not yet arrived. (We have a short piece about the composition of the OT 2008 clerk class in this month's Washingtonian magazine; to read it, click here.)

But compared to his colleagues, Justice Scalia is in the middle of the pack when it comes to OT 2009 hiring. In addition to Scalia, five other justices have hired at least one clerk for 2009-2010. Justice Ginsburg is the farthest along, having already hired half of her clerks for that year.

To see what the class of SCOTUS clerks for OT 2009 looks like so far, read below the fold.

We wouldn't have guessed this, in light of his social conservatism and the show's risqué nature. But here it is, from New York Magazine's Intelligencer:

Apparently Antonin Scalia is a Sex and the City fan. When Sarah Jessica Parker finished an interview with Charlie Rose on May 29, she left the Bloomberg Building, where the show is taped, and stopped for a cigarette in the courtyard. The conservative Supreme Court justice emerged from a nearby Town Car and rushed over to praise the star.

"He was absolutely gushing, telling her how much he loved her show and how excited he was to see the movie," says a witness. "Finally, he asked her if he could bum a cigarette." She obliged, the witness said, and then Scalia strolled away. A Supreme Court spokeswoman confirmed the meeting but denied the cadge. "He was there for a symposium," she said. "And he lent her a match."

What, no lighter? Supreme Court justices may be underpaid, but Justice Scalia, who recently reported assets between $1.5 million and $3 million, can surely afford a nice Dunhill.

On second thought, maybe chemistry between SJP and AS isn't so surprising after all. Justice Scalia does look a little like "Mr. Big." (Or, to put it another way, Chris Noth looks like a young Scalia.)

Over at the WSJ Law Blog, a commenter speculates: "That is a new low, a guy telling a woman how much he likes 'Sex and the City' in order to bum a cigarette from her. How many guys really like that HBO series? Not very many. Scalia must be a hard core nicotine addict."

Update / Correction: This post is subject to a correction. Please see here.

Love Supreme for Carrie Bradshaw [Intelligencer / NYM via WSJ Law Blog]

On Tuesday night we attended an excellent event here in Washington. Sponsored by the Federalist Society and titled An Evening with Justice Antonin Scalia, the event consisted of a talk by the justice about his new book, Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges, followed by a question-and-answer session and book signing.

The first part of our write-up, focused on the book talk, was previously posted here. The second and final part, focused on the Q-and-A, appears after the jump.

On Tuesday evening, we attended An Evening with Justice Antonin Scalia, sponsored by the Washington, DC Lawyers Chapter of the Federalist Society. Justice Scalia spoke about his new book, Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges; took questions on a wide range of subjects, during an impressively long Q-and-A session; and signed copies of his book for the adoring masses.

The event took place in a packed ballroom -- standing room only -- at the Marriott Wardman Park. If you're interested, you can read a more detailed write-up, after the jump.

Justice Antonin Scalia is often wrongly viewed as being a knee-jerk conservative. If you survey his entire jurisprudence, you'll notice many cases in which he sided with the criminal defendant over law enforcement. His view of the Sixth Amendment, as articulated in the line of sentencing cases starting with Apprendi and moving forward, is generally pro-defendant.

And just the other day, in Begay v. United States (PDF), Justice Scalia once again sided with the criminal. Why? An observant ATL reader offers this speculation:

In Begay v. U.S., the Court decided drunk driving was not a "violent felony" under the Armed Career Criminal Act. Nino concurred, saying the following: "because I cannot say that drunk driving clearly poses [a serious risk of injury to another], the rule of lenity brings me to concur in the judgment of the Court."

Weird for two reasons. First, does Nino really think a DUI is not dangerous? And second, how often do we hear Nino invoke the rule of lenity?

But maybe not so weird after all. Recall Nino's daughter, Ann Banaszewski, getting busted for DUI, which was all the more shocking because she had her kids in the car. Hmm.

In other recent Nino news, a different reader reports:

Did you read Scalia's concurrence in Baze v. Rees? He pretty much gave Stevens a rhetorical beatdown; guess Nino won't be getting an invite to Stevens' birthday party this weekend....

Here's one part we especially liked (citations omitted):

The experience of the state legislatures and the Congress—who retain the death penalty as a form of punishment—is dismissed as “the product of habit and inattention rather than an acceptable deliberative process.” The experience of social scientists whose studies indicate that the death penalty deters crime is relegated to a footnote. The experience of fellow citizens who support the death penalty is described, with only the most thinly veiled condemnation, as stemming from a “thirst for vengeance.” It is Justice Stevens’ experience that reigns over all.

Or maybe Justice Kennedy's. Ain't judicial review grand?

(That's just one excerpt; the opinion as a whole is quite the benchslap. Check it out in full over here.)

Court: Drunk driving not a violent felony [SCOTUSblog]
Begay v. United States [SCOTUSblog (PDF)]

* House Democrats oppose Senate spy bill's telecom immunity. [Washington Post]

* Justice Scalia approves of "so-called torture" under some circumstances. [MSNBC]

* Just a few months later, Senate committee gets around to admonishing Sen. Craig. [CNN]

* Clemens and McNamee go head to head before Congress. [ESPN]

* City's scantily clad cowboy sues candy-coated counterpart. [WSJ Law Blog]

Our latest legal celebrity sighting: Justice Antonin Scalia, spotted at Georgetown University Law Center. He is believed to have been at GULC to speak to a con law class.

Of the current justices on the Supreme Court, Justice Scalia clearly inspires the greatest amount of fanatical devotion. How many other justices have their own fansite?

(Okay, Justice Thomas has one too. And with his new, bestselling memoir, My Grandfather's Son, he's definitely building a fan base. But we still think that Justice Scalia has the most groupies of any member of the SCOTUS.)

And how many other justices are asked to sign students' laptop computers? This student, who had his laptop autographed by AS, was proudly displaying his computer to his classmates, saying that he felt Scalia had "blessed" his laptop for the upcoming exams.

With such a large and devoted following, we have a feeling that Justice Scalia's forthcoming book -- Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges, a guide to persuasive legal writing and oral advocacy, which he's writing together with legendary legal writing teacher Bryan Garner -- will sell pretty well too.

Scalia to Join Supreme Court Book Club [Legal Times]

In terms of feeding his current crop of clerks to the U.S. Supreme Court, Chief Judge Michael Boudin (1st Cir.) is batting 1.000. We received this tip from multiple sources, but here's the most interesting iteration:

Moshe Spinowitz (HLS '06/Boudin) has been hired by Justice Scalia for October 2008. Spinowitz, or Spino, as he's known, was originally hired by Judge Luttig before he left the bench.

Ah, that makes more sense. Boudin ---> Scalia is not a typical path. And with the addition of Spinowitz, half of the Scalia chambers for OT 2008 will have hailed from Boudinville.

(Justice Scalia previously hired Spinowitz's co-clerk, Yaakov Roth. But with all due respect to Chief Judge Boudin, he may not deserve much credit for feeding Roth. When you're the rara avis of an HLS summa, you can clerk on the Bergen County traffic court and still make it to One First Street.)

Another interesting factoid, considering Justice Scalia's weakness for Catholic kids as clerks:

Spinowitz is the second orthodox Jew Justice Scalia has hired this term (the other being Yaakov Roth). I guess the moral of the story is: If you're an orthodox Jew, try to clerk for Judge Boudin!

If his photograph (at right) is even vaguely accurate, and if he's 5'11" or taller, the handsome Spinowitz has a promising career as a male model. But in the meantime, we're sure that he'll enjoy being a SCOTUS clerk. Congrats, Moshe!

The current tally of OT 2008 Supreme Court clerks, with Mr. Spinowitz added, appears after the jump.

Welcome. If you're at home, tune in to C-SPAN, which is rebroadcasting the recent book party for Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Thomas's eagerly anticipated memoir, My Grandfather's Son, is now in bookstores -- and topping the bestseller charts (to the relief of his publisher, HarperCollins, which reportedly paid him a $1.5 million advance).

7:05: The party is being held at the elegant, red-brick Capitol Hill home of radio host and syndicated columnist Armstrong Williams. Expected to attend: 250 guests, including six Supreme Court justices, Vice President Dick Cheney, and several U.S. senators.

Armstrong Williams is interviewed. He explains that the party has been in the works since June. An overwhelming turnout is expected; more people were turned away than allowed to attend.

7:08: Justice Thomas climbs the stairs. When he enters the kitchen -- which is right at the top of the stairs, and thus (oddly) where everyone enters and exits -- he’s greeted by hearty applause.

Various guests hug him. One guest gushes over his 60 Minutes appearance. CT explains that CBS News made no promises about the nature of its coverage. Interesting. Considering how flattering that segment was, and how uncritical Steve Kroft was in his questioning of Justice Thomas, one might have suspected that Brangelina-type stipulations were in place.

More after the jump.

LEWW offers a seven-gun salute to newlyweds Zina Gelman and John Bash III, who scored a convincing victory in our July Couple of the Month vote.

Zina and John -- currently public servants in the chambers of Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Antonin Scalia, respectively -- finished 16.7 percentage points ahead of the surprising second-place winners, the non-SCOTUS team of Jennifer DeLeonardo and Adam Frey.

Congratulations to Zina, John, and their poor little dog!

(For those of you who are curious, the full results appear after the jump.)

We're posting this on Friday the 13th -- hardly anyone's lucky day. But last Saturday was 7-7-07, and couples all over the world rushed to the altar (and the gambling tables) to take advantage of the auspicious date.

And sevens weren't the only thing we saw multiples of in the NYT weddings section. We've got four grooms this week, and all four are named John!

If that gives you chills, just wait till you check out their credentials.

Here are this week's finalists:

1. Zina Gelman and John Bash III

2. John Alexander and John Lipsey

3. Anne Ho and John Griggs III

More on these couples, after the jump.

[Bonus wedding note: Check out this correction and ponder how annoyed this bride is.]

Over at SCOTUSblog, Tom Goldstein has a long post on who a Democratic president might nominate to fill the Supreme Court vacancies that would surely open up if the GOP exits the White House in 2008.

Goldstein's criteria are fairly straightforward: ideology, experience, demographics, and age (he excluded anyone born before 1952).

Some of the names are familiar (Sonia Sotomayor, Merrick Garland) and some are unexpected (Jennifer Granholm, Ken Salazar). Here's Goldstein's bottom line:

My ultimate predictions? Kim Wardlaw (2009, for Souter), Deval Patrick (2010, for Stevens), and Elena Kagan (2011, for Ginsburg).

What, no Harold Koh?

A SCOTUSblog commenter suggests another factor for a Democratic president to consider:

a relevant consideration is "How aggressively is the nominee going to articulate a coherent liberal jurisprudence?" Finding a lefty version of Scalia to blast the right and get opinions into law school casebooks is what Democrats should be aiming for if they care about politics and partisan entrenchment to their benefit.

The anti-Scalia! Does such a creature exist?

Late last week, Bill Mears of CNN wrote a helpful round-up of the best benchslaps from the Supreme Court's most recent Term. It starts off:

One Supreme Court justice says his fellow conservatives are "too dismissive" of government efforts to ensure racial diversity in schools. Another more liberal member says those on the right did "serious violence" to a high school student's free speech rights. And one conservative slams another for "faux judicial restraint."

That last bench-slap was one of several delivered by Justice Scalia to Chief Justice Roberts. For more, see this Linda Greenhouse piece.

But after all the verbal roughhousing, the justices go back to being friends. Then they scamper off to a bevy of European countries, where they spend the summer soaking up adulation and cash teaching summer courses in constitutional law.

The members of the SCOTUS regularly complain about the inadequacy of federal judicial pay. But let's not forget that they -- as well as certain other federal judges, like the members of the D.C. Circuit -- basically get summers off.

Being a Supreme Court justice: Nice work if you can get it!

Justices take potshots in opinions [CNN via How Appealing]
Even in Agreement, Scalia Puts Roberts to Lash [New York Times]
Supreme Court Justices Hit the Road for the Summer [Legal Times via WSJ Law Blog]

The Supreme Court hasn't yet finished up for October Term 2006 (which should end tomorrow). The law clerks for October Term 2007 will start arriving next month. But many of them have already started hiring clerks for October Term 2008.

We reported on some of those hires back in this post. And now we have more to add:

1. Conservatives hoping for his retirement will be disappointed. Rumor has it Justice John Paul Stevens has hired all of his clerks for OT 2008. The only one whose name we have, however, is Lindsey Powell (Stanford 2007 / Garland).

2. Justice Antonin Scalia has hired Jameson Jones (Stanford 2007 / Sutton). Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a judicial superhottie, is turning into quite the feeder to his former boss.

3. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has hired at least one clerk for October Term 2008 -- Miriam Seifter (Harvard 2007 / Garland) -- and perhaps more.

So in terms of OT 2008, Stanford Law School and Judge Merrick B. Garland are off to a good start.

If you have more SCOTUS clerk hiring news to add, please email us (subject line: "Supreme Court clerk hiring").

A list of OT 2008 law clerks thus far appears after the jump.

At issue in the SCOTUS's decision today in Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd.[SCOTUSblogvia How Appealing] was the definition of the term "strong inference", and therefore what the standard is for determining whether a plaintiff has met the pleading requirements as to scienter in a securities fraud case. Some mildly saucy benchslaps insued.

Justice Scalia expressed his disdain for the majority's resolution to this issue (authored by Justice Ginsburg) this way in his concurring opinion:

If a jade falcon were stolen from a room to which only A and B had access, could it possibly be said there was a "strong inference" that B was the thief? I think not, and I therefore think that the Court's test must fail. In my view, the test should be whether the inference of scienter (if any) is more plausible than the inference of innocence.

Well, I don't know. If a Supreme Court justice uses a really bad analogy from an old movie, could it possibly be said that he had made a "strong argument?"

But Ginsburg wasn't taking this lying down. Her benchslap back from n.5 of the majority opinion is after the jump.

Also, the SCOTUS issued two other opinions today:
Rita v. United States [SCOTUSblog via How Appealing]
Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Assn. v. Brentwood Academy [SCOTUSblog via How Appealing]

We've received some news about Supreme Court law clerk hiring for October Term 2008 (not the upcoming Term, but the one after that):

1. We had heard, through the grapevine, that Justice Antonin Scalia had started his OT 2008 interviewing earlier than usual. And it appears to have yielded at least one hire: Yaakov Roth (Harvard 2007 / Boudin).

Rumor has it that Roth has one of the highest GPAs in the history of Harvard Law School. So presumably he's graduating summa cum laude -- which happens once in a blue moon at HLS.

2. Justice Samuel Alito continues his trend of hiring from the ranks of his former Third Circuit clerks. Jack L. White (Pepperdine 2003 / Alito) will be reunited with his former boss for 2008-2009.

If you have more SCOTUS clerk hiring news to add, please email us (subject line: "Supreme Court clerk hiring").

A list of OT 2008 law clerks thus far, combining what we've just learned with information currently reflected on Wikipedia, appears after the jump.

Time for some celebrity DWI news. It's like your morning coffee: you can't get your day started without it.

First, troubled underage starlet Lindsay Lohan (near right) -- who is back in rehab, after a drunk driving arrest over the Memorial Day weekend -- allegedly suffers from OxyContin addiction, according to her estranged dad, Michael Lohan.

On the one hand, Lohan's felonious father may not be the most reliable source. But on the other hand, we're talking about Lindsay Lohan.

Second, an update on someone whose misadventures we have followed quite closely in these pages: Ann Banaszewski (far right), daughter of Justice Antonin Scalia (far right). From the Chicago Tribune:

A daughter of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia pleaded guilty Wednesday to drunken driving in Wheaton in February....

Banaszewski accepted a plea agreement with prosecutors and was sentenced by DuPage County Judge Daniel Guerin to 18 months of court supervision. She also was ordered to perform 140 hours of public service (of which 40 hours must be beneficial to children), attend counseling and treatment sessions, attend a victim-impact panel and pay $1,500 in fines and fees.

Will his daughter's brush with the law turn the crustily conservative Nino into a bleeding heart for criminal defendants? Stay tuned.

(Yes, we know -- Justice Scalia has handed down numerous rulings favorable to criminal defendants. E.g., Blakely v. Washington; Crawford v. Washington. But he's far from the most pro-defendant member of the Court.)

Lohan's Dad: Lindsay Hooked on OxyContin [Associated Press]
Justice's daughter pleads guilty to DUI [Chicago Tribune]
Scalia's daughter pleads guilty to drunken driving [Journal-Gazette / Times-Courier]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of Ann Banaszewski (scroll down)

Okay, make that yesterday. A reader email drew our attention to the saucy conclusion of Justice Antonin Scalia's dissent in Roper v. Weaver:

The greatest harm is that done to AEDPA, since dismissing the writ of certiorari leaves the Eighth Circuit's grossly erroneous precedent on the books. (That precedent, by the way, cannot be explained away—as perhaps the Court's own opinion can—as the product of law-distorting compassion for a defendant wronged by a District Court's erroneous action. As noted earlier, the Eighth Circuit was not informed of that erroneous action. It presumably really believes that this is the way AEDPA should be applied.)

Other courts should be warned that this Court's failure to reverse the Eighth Circuit's decision is a rare manifestation of judicial clemency unrestrained by law. They would be well advised to do unto the Eighth Circuit's decision just what it did unto AEDPA: ignore it.

WHACK! As our correspondent notes: "Scalia manages to benchslap both the majority opinion and the 8th Circuit all in the same paragraph."

Some of Justice Scalia's colleagues get cheeky on occasion. Another tipster drew our attention to Part IV of Justice Stevens's Bell Atlantic v. Twombly dissent -- which Justice Ginsburg expressly declined to join, perhaps due to its 'tude.

But at the end of the day, there's no disputing this truth: When it comes to benchslaps, nobody does it like Nino.

Roper v. Weaver [FindLaw]
Bell Atlantic v. Twombly [FindLaw]