Who's your favorite Supreme Court justice?

ATL is taking a poll. I forgot to guess who I thought would win before I looked at the results... at which point it seemed obvious. It's interesting how evenly spread the vote is, though, with the highest only getting 19%, and 6 of the 9 getting between 10 and 20%. Do you think most lawprofs have a favorite Supreme Court justice? I think they may but that it's not someone currently on the Court. My favorite justices tend to be favorites because I enjoy presenting their points of view in the classroom or because I like their writing style, not because I think they are getting more things right than the others.

ATL is also talking about reviving the term "Scalito," using it not in the original sense of mocking Alito as a Scalia clone, but to refer to the two as a pair when they make a joint appearance -- the way one refers to celebrity couples like Brangelina and Bennifer. (The first comment over there tries to make nicknames out of other judicial pairs.) Anyway, this Scalito entity appeared at a National Italian American Foundation the other day. Scalia talked about judicial independence and said: "You talk about independence as though it is unquestionably and unqualifiably a good thing. It may not be. It depends on what your courts are doing." And Alito seemed to have a problem with people writing about judges on the internet:

"This is not just like somebody handing out a leaflet in the past, where a small number of people can see this. This is available to the world. ... It changes what it means to be a judge. It certainly changes the attractiveness of a judicial career."

Hey, it's not my job to make your job feel cushy!