ANTONIN SCALIA AND ME

ANTONIN SCALIA AND MY SOLO LAW PRACTCE By Larry Delano Coleman, Esq. Monday, February 22, 2016 Deaths of influential men demand acknowledgement. Some by encomium, some by calumny. Antonin Scalia has received his fair share of both, since his peaceful passing on February 13, 2016, at age 79. I was directly influenced by the life of Antonin Scalia, although we never met, nor communicated. My solo, plaintiffs’-civil rights-oriented, law practice in Kansas City, Missouri from 1986-2010, fully felt him. As a former Assistant United States Attorney in Kansas City, Missouri, the second black appointee in the 100+ year history of that office, I was also a very proud, Howard University Law School graduate (1976), as was my predecessor. Naturally, I was steeped in Constitutional rubric and its statutory phylacteries. While I do not consider my double-alma mater, Howard U., to be among that class of “slower college” indiscreetly decried and sedulously lampooned by Justice Scalia during oral arguments in December 2015, in the case Fisher v. University of Texas, it is yet self-evident from his legal corpus, that he did! However, even then, he had conceded that the majority of “black scientists” come from these “slower colleges,” by which he surely meant historically black colleges and universities (“HBCU’S”). Hardly a criticism, that fact justifies their increased funding, continued existence in our national interest! Despite his inverse compliment to HBCU’s, that utterance, speaks mightily of the presence of malevolent prejudices reposing deeply within this man, who is quoted as saying: “There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well. One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they're being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them.” That was his most recent salvo. Soon after, he was found dead in Texas on an exclusive hunting ranch. I entered the private practice of law in August 1986. Scalia was appointed by Republican President, Ronald Reagan, in September 1986. He was the first Italian-descended justice. While some alleged legal critics have saluted his so-called “originalism” method of legal interpretation, I have found nothing original nor salutary about it. Rather it was repressive and recrudescent of that now-vilified, 19-century U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Roger Taney, who authored the infamous Dred Scott decision of 1857. Taney famously wrote that blacks were not “citizens,” within the meaning of the original Constitution. He also wrote they were not even “persons,” within its meaning, whether slave or free! Moreover, Taney also asserted that blacks “had no rights that a white man was bound to respect.” I felt that lack of respect in 1986, when I became an involuntary solo practitioner. “Involuntary,” means that the large, white, Kansas City firms claimed that I was then “overqualified,” after previously claiming that I was “under-qualified” only a few years earlier. “Involuntary” also means the few black firms claimed I would require too much money. Both lacked credence in my view, and a lack of respect. But, undaunted, I moved on anyway into solo practice, since my soul cried out! The Bible spoke truthfully when it said, “It is not good for man to be alone.” Especially was this true for one, like me, who, lacking practical experience in the day-to-day “hustle” that is—or was--the private practice, for me 1986-2010. Life was very different in solo practice. Previously, in prior jobs at the U.S. Justice Department (1979-1986); the Regional Solicitor’s Office of the U. S. Department of Labor (1976-1979); or even at the Federal Communications Commission, where I was a law clerk to Rev. Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks in 1975, I had no overhead, and steady, dependable income. Sinecure is greatly to be praised! Entering the headwinds, alone, amid the Reagan-led political and economic repression, that filtered all the way down to the county, and municipal levels, from the states, I experienced an array of punitive, plaintiff and plaintiff’s-lawyer averse, changes to state and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including Rule 11 and Rule 4(j)—later abrogated. Such rules wrought havoc on me and those like me. Fees of all kinds: annual attorney licensing’s fees, court filing fees for cases in state and federal court; along with increased costs of experts, depositions, supplies, taxes, and wages. From top-to-down and back-up, we took a beating! Moreover, the insurance companies changed their settlement protocols to make it more difficult to settle personal injury cases of all kinds, while unleashing negative ads about frivolous suits! Meanwhile, my client base, those that were constrained, after numerous prior rejections elsewhere, to seek out lawyers like me, would not listen. Instead, they remained utterly convinced, despite objective indicia to the contrary, that their particular case was that rare “pie-in-the sky phenomenon,” that one-in-a-million big one. They had read the papers. They watched television, listened to radio. They believed the “hype.” They just “knew” that they, too, could win the plaintiff’s litigation lottery big-time! Certain of my clients, then—thank God not all, nor most, over my 23 years of solo practice--believed that their fact-pattern would prevail; despite the rules, the judge, the law, the locale, and their own lack of money to continue to pay for the futile legal services that they demanded! These filed bar complaints. These hyper-demanding clients were that strong “east-west-turbulence” of the Reagan-Rehnquist-Scalia era. Beyond all of this was the law handed down from on high by Scalia and “conservatives.” Emblematic is Graham v. Conner, a 1989, decision which insulated police brutality from civil or criminal liability. Cited by the Justice Department, in its investigation of the Ferguson-Michael Brown murder, it prohibits any testimony from anyone except officers on the scene, citing cops’ life-imperiling split-second judgements. Good-bye, sir!