Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1936, the only child of an Italian immigrant professor, and became a law professor, an official in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and a federal appeals judge before Ronald Reagan named him to the Supreme Court in 1986 — confirmed unanimously, 98–0. Brilliant, combative, and gifted with a prose style unmatched on the modern Court, 'Nino' Scalia arrived determined to change how American judges read the Constitution and the statutes.
Scalia was the most consequential justice never to lead the Court, the champion of 'originalism' and 'textualism' who reshaped legal argument even when he lost. He insisted that the Constitution means what it meant to those who ratified it, and that a statute means what its words say — a method he wielded with scorching wit. He wrote the Court's landmark Second Amendment decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, but much of his influence ran through his dissents, above all his lone dissent in Morrison v. Olson, whose theory of executive power was vindicated decades later. He could reach results that unsettled his own allies, as in his Confrontation Clause opinions for criminal defendants. He died in office in February 2016, and the yearlong fight over his seat reshaped the Court and the country.
District of Columbia v. Heller
2008Holding · The Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep a handgun in the home for self-defense, unconnected to militia service.
Role · Scalia wrote for the Court, in an exhaustive originalist opinion.
The foundational modern gun-rights decision and the fullest demonstration of Scalia's originalist method.
Read the opinion →Morrison v. Olson
1988Holding · (Dissenting) The independent-counsel law violates the separation of powers by stripping the President of control over executive functions; 'this wolf comes as a wolf.'
Role · Scalia dissented alone.
Derided at the time, his dissent's theory of the 'unitary executive' steadily gained force and is now widely regarded as vindicated.
Read the opinion →Employment Division v. Smith
1990Holding · A neutral, generally applicable law does not violate the Free Exercise Clause merely because it burdens a religious practice.
Role · Scalia wrote for the Court.
Sharply narrowed constitutional protection for religious exercise, prompting Congress to pass the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and igniting a debate that continues today.
Read the opinion →Antonin Scalia was the most consequential justice never to lead a Court — the brilliant, combative, endlessly quotable champion of originalism and textualism who, across three decades, changed how American lawyers and judges argue about the Constitution and statutes even when he could not command a majority. Appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1986, 'Nino' Scalia insisted that the Constitution means what it meant to those who ratified it and that a statute means what its words say, not what its drafters intended or its readers might wish — a method he wielded with scorching wit in opinions that made him a hero to the conservative legal movement and a foil to nearly everyone else. He wrote the Court's landmark Second Amendment decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, but his deepest influence ran through his dissents, above all his lone dissent in Morrison v. Olson, whose theory of executive power was vindicated decades later. He died in office in 2016, and the fight over his replacement reshaped the Court and the country. Joan Biskupic's American Original is the essential biography. Begin there, read Scalia's own manifesto on interpretation, and then Heller and the great Morrison dissent.
The Bookshelf
The definitive biography, by a veteran Supreme Court journalist. Biskupic traces Scalia's Sicilian-immigrant roots, his rise through the Nixon and Ford administrations and the University of Chicago, and his transformation of constitutional argument from the bench — and she is equally good on the man: the opera-loving, gun-owning, combative Catholic intellectual who befriended his ideological opposite, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Balanced and briskly written, it captures both the method and the personality that made him the most influential justice of his era. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
The other major biography, and the skeptical one — Bruce Allen Murphy argues that Scalia's combativeness and refusal to compromise cost him the majorities his talents deserved, leaving him a brilliant 'court of one.' Read it against Biskupic's more sympathetic life. Simon & Schuster.
The first serious scholarly study of Scalia's method and its place in the conservative legal movement — a close reading of the opinions through his first decade that remains a standard analytical account. Johns Hopkins University Press.
The systematic account of the theory — Rossum on how originalism and textualism actually operate across Scalia's opinions, and where the two commitments pull against each other. The book for the jurisprudence on its own terms. University Press of Kansas.
The critical reckoning with the legacy — the election-law scholar Richard Hasen argues that Scalia's slashing style and disruptive method did as much to coarsen legal argument as his originalism did to reshape it. The sharpest of the retrospective assessments. Yale University Press.
Scalia's own manifesto, and the clearest short statement of the philosophy he spent a career advancing. In a lead essay he attacks the reliance on legislative history and 'living constitutionalism' and makes the case for textualism and originalism; distinguished critics — Laurence Tribe, Ronald Dworkin, and others — respond, and Scalia answers back. The result is a genuine debate in a single slim volume, the best place to understand what originalism claims and what its ablest opponents say against it. Princeton University Press.
Scalia's fullest statement of method, written with the lexicographer Bryan Garner — a systematic catalog of the canons of interpretation and the case for reading statutes and the Constitution by their text. The working manual of the textualist movement he led. (See also their Making Your Case, 2008, on advocacy.) Thomson/West.
The posthumous collection of his speeches — on the Constitution, faith, friendship, and the well-lived life — edited by his son and a former clerk, with a foreword by his friend and opposite Ruth Bader Ginsburg (§107). The warmest, most personal Scalia. Crown Forum.
The best single-volume selection of his opinions and essays, arranged by theme, with a foreword by Justice Elena Kagan (§112) — the efficient way to meet Scalia the writer and arguer. (Kevin Ring's Scalia's Court, 2016, is a fuller opinion anthology.) Crown Forum.
Scalia's most important majority opinion, and the fullest demonstration of his method at work. Holding for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep a handgun for self-defense in the home, he built the decision on an exhaustive originalist reading of the amendment's text and eighteenth-century history. Praised as originalism's great triumph and attacked — including by fellow originalists — as selective in its history, it is the case to read alongside Stevens's dissent (§101) to see two justices apply the same method to the same words and reach opposite results.
The lone dissent that may be Scalia's most enduring work. When the Court upheld the independent-counsel law seven to one, Scalia alone insisted it violated the separation of powers by wresting executive authority from the president — 'this wolf comes as a wolf,' he warned. Derided at the time, the dissent's theory of the 'unitary executive' steadily gained force, and after the abuses and frustrations of later independent-counsel investigations his position was widely seen as vindicated when the statute was allowed to lapse. Read it as the model of a dissent written for the future, and as the taproot of a powerful modern theory of presidential power.
Scalia's most consequential — and, on the right, most contested — opinion. Holding that the Free Exercise Clause does not exempt religious believers from neutral, generally applicable laws (here, a peyote ban), he narrowed religious-liberty protection and provoked a thirty-year backlash, from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to the campaign to overrule Smith outright. Free online.
The first major Scalia biography since Murphy — volume one of Rosen's two-volume life, written with extensive family cooperation, carrying Scalia from Queens through the appellate bench to the 1986 appointment. Regnery.
Published in February 2026 — the first fifteen Court years: the dissents that built a movement, the Thomas alliance, the feuds and friendships. With volume one, now the fullest biographical treatment of Scalia in print. Skyhorse.
A liberal friend's case-by-case study of the roughly 135 times Scalia's method produced liberal results — flag burning, confrontation rights, sentencing. The systematic counterpoint a shelf of admirers and one prosecutor (Hasen) needs. Cambridge University Press.
The Reading Path
A researched route through the literature — in order.
- 1.Biskupic, American Original — for the life and the personality behind the method
- 2.Scalia, A Matter of Interpretation — for originalism and textualism argued by their champion, with critics
- 3.District of Columbia v. Heller — for the method's great triumph, in his own hand
- 4.Morrison v. Olson dissent — for the lone dissent that shaped a theory of presidential power
- 5.Reading Law — for the textualist method in his own words
Where the Papers Are Kept
Scalia's family donated his papers to the Harvard Law School Library, which has been releasing them to researchers in stages. The collection documents his three decades on the Court and his campaign to remake constitutional and statutory interpretation — drafts, correspondence, and case files that trace how his opinions and dissents took shape. As more is opened it will be the essential archive for the originalist movement he led. Visit →
Online Resources
Ideas for Further Research
- Winning by losing. Scalia often could not hold a majority, yet he arguably reshaped American law more than justices who did — by changing the terms of argument so that even his opponents now debate text and original meaning. Study how a justice exercises influence through method and rhetoric rather than votes, and ask whether originalism's rise is best measured in Scalia's majorities or in the questions everyone now feels obliged to answer.
- The costs of combat. Scalia's scorching dissents thrilled his admirers and, critics say, coarsened the Court's discourse and sometimes cost him votes he might have won with a lighter touch. Weigh his rhetorical style against his effectiveness: did the wit and the barbs advance his cause or isolate him, and what does his example suggest about the relationship between a justice's tone and a justice's power?
- Originalism against itself. In Heller, fellow originalists accused Scalia of reading history selectively; in other cases critics charged that his results tracked his politics more than his method. Test originalism on its own terms by working through the cases where its practitioners disagree, and ask whether the method genuinely constrains the judge or chiefly relocates the discretion it claims to remove. Seat lineage: William Rehnquist §100 → Antonin Scalia → Neil Gorsuch §113.