'With him, a piece of my own life is carried to the grave': Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is
Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas gave moving and, at times personal, tributes to Antonin Scalia at a memorial for the 79-year-old on Tuesday.
Along with the justices, three of Scalia's nine children and former law clerks spoke in front of about 500 people at the service for Scalia, who was found dead February 13 at age 79.
Thomas, who sat next to Scalia during oral arguments at the court, said he will miss Scalia's under-his-breath commentary and lunches where he'd order anchovy pizza.
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg speaks at the memorial service for Justice Antonin Scalia
When Scalia finished an opinion he was particularly pleased with he would say, 'Clarence, you have got to hear this. This is really good', and then give a dramatic reading, Thomas said.
Thomas, who delivered a reading at Scalia's Feb. 20 funeral, said Scalia 'worked hard to get things right', and that he cared about both broad principles and details like grammar and syntax.
'He was passionate about it all, and it was all important to him,' Thomas said during the memorial at the Mayflower Hotel, which all eight justices and several hundred other people attended.
Thomas paused to collect himself at one point in his speech when he quoted from the eulogy for an influential pastor killed by the Nazi regime: 'With him, a piece of my own life is carried to the grave.'
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas speaks at the memorial service for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
Scalia and Thomas were close friends on the bench and said the two would pass notes back and forth during oral arguments
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ShareThe two were ideological soul mates, believing the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted in its 18th Century context, which often put them on the losing side of cases.
Scalia was always ready to do battle.
Thomas said that as he sat between Scalia and liberal Justice Stephen Breyer on the bench during oral arguments, the two would pass notes back and forth.
Becoming more somber and choking back emotion, Thomas, who joined the court in 1991, spoke of the bond arising from their shared Roman Catholic faith and Jesuit education: 'We walked together for a quarter century.'
John Manning, who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, spoke to approximately 500 people at the service
Catherine Courtney, daughter of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia remembered her father as someone who always made time for family dinners
The service was held a day after Thomas ended a decade of self-imposed silence during court arguments.
Ginsburg, Scalia's ideological opposite on the court, remembered Scalia giving her a draft of a dissent she called a 'zinger' and how her 'final draft was much improved thanks to Justice Scalia's searing criticism'.
Ginsburg, who became friends with the conservative justice in the early 1980s when they served together as federal appeals court judges, said she will miss his 'eminently quotable opinions' and acts of friendship, like bringing her roses on her birthday.
Scalia was no fan of eulogies, and his funeral Mass contained few stories about a larger-than-life personality who served on the court for nearly 30 years.
Tuesday's memorial was a time for stories about the justice that were poignant or funny, or both.
His daughter Catherine Courtney remembered her father as someone who always made time for family dinners, was a poor estimator of travel time and commanded burgers to 'be juicy' when he grilled.
His daughter Mary Clare Murray said that the only way she or her siblings got out of attending church on Sunday was if they were sick and stayed in bed all day.
One of Scalia's former clerks, Joan Larsen, now a justice on the Michigan Supreme Court, remembered Scalia singing in his chambers and whistling in the court's corridors.
Scalia's death, on February 13, has left an open seat in the U.S. Supreme Court and an evenly-split bench
She said she was once scolded for citing the third edition of Webster's Dictionary; Scalia liked the second edition.
Larsen, who was one of the clerks who stood watch over Scalia's casket at the Supreme Court on the day before his funeral, said that clerks found that the most challenging thing to do while standing there and thinking about him was not to keep from crying but to keep from grinning.
Scalia, a three-decade veteran of America's highest court, left the court without its most prominent conservative voice and triggered a political fight over the Republican-led Senate's refusal to consider anyone Democratic President Barack Obama might choose as Scalia's successor.
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