Say it ain't so Nino!

I am big fan of Justice Scalia but his dissent in the Oregon assisted suicide case was actually kind of sad. It represented to kind of results oriented jurisprudence and pro-federalist opinion that Scalia is supposed to stand against.

Much of the decision was technical administrative law stuff that I, as a non lawyer, don't really know or understand but reading the opinion (here) and Scalia's dissent (here) it's clear that Scalia gets the worst of it.

He tries to expand the meaning of the term "legitimate medical practices" to the point where the Attorney General becomes the sole national arbiter of that term. There's no way that that is the meaning or intent of the Controlled Substance Act. That's dangerous on federalism and separation of powers grounds.

And then there was this:

The fact that many in Oregon believe that the boundaries of "legitimate medicine"
should be extended to include assisted suicide does not change the fact that the overwhelming weight of authority (including the 47 States that condemn physician-assisted suicide) confirms that they have not yet been so extended.

Nino, Nino, Nino! That's the language of Kennedy and Souter in Lawrence v. Kansas and the juvenal death penalty cases. That's not the language of Scalia the Great!

Congress can pass a law outlawing physician assisted suicide tomorrow if it wishes (and only Justice Thomas and I would dissent) but they didn't. And as much as Scalia wants to prohibit this morally abhorrant practice, the law doesn't allow for it.

My idol has fallen. A sad, sad day.