Scalia said that judges cannot reinvent the wheel, particularly if precedent has been in place for a long time.
"We are textualists. We are originalists. We are not nuts," he said.
One prominent exception to that is Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court's 1973 ruling that legalized abortion. He does not consider that binding precedent, he said, because it was wrong, remains controversial and is an issue better left to legislators than judges.
What's more, the court's subsequent decisions on abortion are based on the judge-made theory of "substantive due process," which guarantees certain fundamental rights like privacy. It's "utterly idiotic," Scalia said...