WASHINGTON — The seeds of the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent rulings on guns and abortion lie in the legal theories of a justice who died six years ago.
For decades before his 2016 death, Justice Antonin Scalia was the court’s champion of originalism, the approach to constitutional law that hews tightly to the founding fathers’ words. Once backed only by fellow Justice Clarence Thomas, Scalia’s vision now commands a majority on the court and is even invoked by the liberal justices.
But the embrace is raising new questions as to whether originalism is fulfilling Scalia’s pledge that it would keep judges from injecting their personal views into the law. As deployed by the current court, originalism includes a deep dive into American legal history, something critics say invites cherry-picking to reach a desired result. With abortion and guns, the court used centuries-old laws to justify its conclusions.
