Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1986
Publication Title
University of Miami Law Review
Keywords
Antonin Scalia, Richard Bork, Richard Posner, Frank Easterbrook, Ralph Winter, Jr., Edmund Burke, conservative theory
Abstract
This article completes a two-part series studying the constitutional jurisprudence of Judges Antonin Scalia, Richard Posner, Robert Bork, Frank Easterbrook, and Ralph Winter Jr., five conservative academics appointed by President Reagan to the United States Court of Appeals. Judge Scalia has recently been appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. In a previous article, published in the last issue of the University of Miami Law Review, I evaluated these five jurists' constitutional scholarship by contrasting their views with those of Edmund Burke, the originator of political conservative theory. That article tested Burke's wariness of political abstractions and his hatred of tyranny against those five jurists' theoretical works, and concluded that, of the five men's philosophies, Posner's commitment to wealth maximization and Bork's positivism were the most dangerous forms of constitutional jurisprudence. Easterbrook's commitment to law and economics was not as relentless. Neither Winter no Scalia has ever presented a grand theory of constitutional law.
Repository Citation
James G. Wilson, Constraints of Power: The Constitutional Opinions of Judges Scalia, Bork, Posner, Easterbrook, and Winter, 40 University of Miami Law Review 1171 (1986)
