Antonin Scalia was a US judge who served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was appointed by then US president, Ronald Reagan in 1986 and remained in that capacity until his death in 2016.
Scalia was a Havard-bred legal mind who equally served as an Assistant Attorney General in both the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations. Read more about the late conservative US Supreme Court Justice.
Antonin Scalia Biography
Antonin Scalia was born Antonin Gregory Scalia in Trenton, New Jersey. His birthdate was on March 11, 1936, and he was born to Salvatore Eugene Scalia and Catherine Louise Panaro as the only child of his parents. They (his parents) were immigrants of Italian origin. While his father, Salvatore, was an Italian immigrant himself, his mother, Catherine was born in the United States to Italian immigrants. Salvatore worked as a clerk before becoming a professor of Romance languages at Brooklyn College and Catherine worked as a school teacher.
Antonin attended elementary school at P.S. 13. before proceeding to attend Xavier High School, a Jesuit military school in Manhattan, through a scholarship. Scalia graduated from Xavier High as the best student of his class and consequently, a valedictorian. He would proceed to study at Georgetown University, where his brilliance saw him top his class and also graduate as a valedictorian. Scalia also studied at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland.
This bloke went further to study law at the prestigious Harvard Law School and graduated in 1960. He also served a law firm in Cleveland for six years before getting a job at the University of Virginia as a law school professor.
Antonin Scalia Family, Wife, and Children
Antonin Scalia was married to only one woman all his life. He was married to Maureen McCarthy and remained by her side for the 56 years they were together. The two met for the first time on a blind date. Ms. McCarthy was an undergraduate student at Radcliffe College at the time while Scalia was pursuing his law degree at Harvard Law School. The young lovers got sealed in holy matrimony on September 10, 1960, when they both walked down the aisle at St. Pius X church in Yarmouth, Massachusetts, and promised to forever be together till death do them part.
Their marriage was blessed with nine children – five boys (Eugene, John, Paul, Matthew, and Christopher Scalia) and four girls (Catherine, Ann, Margaret, and Mary). Eugene and Paul took after Antonin in the legal profession and today, both of them are attorneys. Having raised the children as Catholics, Paul took the oath of celibacy and was ordained a priest in the Catholic faith. Christopher is an accomplished writer while Matthew serves in the US Army.
His daughters, on the other hand, are all married with families of their own. In all, the Justice Scalia family has 33 grandchildren.
What Caused His Death?
The US Supreme Court Justice died on February 13, 2016, at the age of 79. Reports have it that he died peacefully in his sleep as he was found in his room at Cibolo Creek Ranch in Shafter, Texas where he slept that fateful night after hunting quails in the day. Autopsy reports revealed that he died of natural causes. According to his medical files, Scalia had a long history of high blood pressure and other heart-related ailments.
Other Facts About Antonin Scalia
1. Antonin Scalia was a devout Roman Catholic. He would drive long distances to attend masses in parishes that concurred to traditional Catholic beliefs he held dear.
2. His interment, though private, was officiated by his own son Rev. Fr. Paul Scalia as officiating priest.
3. He received several posthumous awards including the America Award which was awarded to him in October 2016 by the Italy–USA Foundation in Rome.
4. Scalia’s death while serving as a US Justice was the second time in history a serving justice is vacating his position, howbeit, in death.
5. While in high school, Scalia served as a Boy Scout in the Order of the Arrow, a Scouting’s national honor society.
6. His academic brilliance manifested at all levels. After graduating summa cum laude from Georgetown University, Scalia also graduated magna cum laude from Havard, which earned him a place as a Sheldon Fellow of Harvard University.
7. George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia was renamed Antonin Scalia Law School on May 17, 2016.
