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Advertisement | Justice Scalia On The Record60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl Interviews The Supreme Court Justice About His Public And Private LifeSept. 14, 2008 ![]() ![]() Justice Scalia On Life Part 1The U.S. Supreme Court’s Antonin Scalia discusses his public and private life in a remarkably candid interview with Lesley Stahl. | Share/Embed (CBS) The Scalia children, ranging in age from 27 to 46, are all conservative, all successful, including two lawyers, a major in the Army, a poet, and a priest. "If in an old-fashioned Catholic family with five sons you don't get one priest out of it, we’re in big trouble, right?" Scalia jokes. "I will say that the other four were very happy when Paul announced that he was going to take one for the team. I don’t know." "The justice told us that he didn't go to the soccer games and the piano recitals and things," Stahl tells Maureen Scalia. "You know, my parents never did it for me," Antonin Scalia interrupts. "And I didn't take it personally. 'Oh Daddy, come to my softball game.' No, I mean, it’s my softball game. He has his work. I got my softball game. Of course, she was very loyal. She went to all the games." "Most," Maureen Scalia adds. "I would get five minutes at each on a Saturday." All their children are grown up now. And Scalia, after 22 years on the court is starting another career as an author. His new book, "Making Your Case, The Art Of Persuading Judges," is surprisingly breezy in that it’s a primer for lawyers on how to win cases. His co-author is Bryan Garner, an expert on legal writing. "You say things in it like, ‘Be prepared. Look the judge in the eye.’ You almost make it sound like lawyers are imbeciles," Stahl says. "You would be surprised," Scalia replies, laughing. They wrote the book together, occasionally sitting side by side, arguing. Surprisingly, Garner says, it was the justice who often showed humility by yielding. "I thought you punched pretty hard. You threw me a hard punch. And then sometimes he'd just want to see: could I punch back on the counterpoint. But often he could be brought around. He could be persuaded," Garner explains. "That doesn’t show that I’m humble. It just shows that I’m not stupid," Scalia says. "I thought you were very deferential, and surprisingly so. It was disarming to me." Garner adds. Scalia deferential? That's something you never hear about him on the court, where he has been unable to persuade his fellow justices to come over to his way of thinking. The only other originalist on the court is Justice Clarence Thomas. "A lot of people thought that when you joined the court you would use your charm to bring the other justices around to side with you. And it hasn't happened," Stahl says. "I'm not going to change their basic philosophy. These people have been thinking about the law for years. They're not going to suddenly say, 'Oh God, Nino, explain it all to me.' I understand that's not going to happen," Scalia says. Produced by Ruth Streeter | Advertisement |
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