I had the unexpected pleasure of meeting and chatting with Justice Antonin Scalia in 2005 when I was a justice of the Appellate Division, First Department. I quoted several delicious statements in his opinions, and we talked in particular about one biting but hilarious footnote, note 13 in Blakely v. Washington, 542 U.S. 296, 312. He was not at all troubled by my delight over the footnote. At the end of our conversation (too brief, at least for me), I asked him if he knew the following line from Juvenal: “It is difficult not to write satire.” He exploded with laughter and sensing an opportunity, I told him I would send him a letter with the cite. I did, and also proposed that the footnote be enlarged with a few rather tart sentences and expressed my belief that no reasonable objection could be made if he were to recall his opinion.
I received a response! After saying (to my great joy) that my proposed additions to the footnote were “admirable,” he went on as follows: “I would adopt them were it not for the fact that I am already enshrined as the official judicial ‘meanie’ with whom all new nominees to this court are favorably compared, as in ‘At least he’s more civil and less acerbic than Scalia.’”
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