One of the Volokh Conspiracy pundits, Ilya Somin, writes to highlight some recent remarks by the ever interesting Antonin Scalia.  First, on Kelo versus New London, which ruled that government can condemn private property and give it to other private owners to promote “economic development”, Scalia

… reiterated his 2011 prediction that the decision will eventually be overruled, stating that it “will not survive.”  Kelo was a closely divided 5-4 decision (Scalia voted with the dissenters) that generated an unprecedented political backlash across the political spectrum, and has also been repudiated by every state supreme court which has considered the question of whether to adopt it as a guide to the interpretation of their state constitutions’ public use clauses.  In 2011, Justice John Paul Stevens, the author of the Kelo majority opinion, conceded that he made a significant, “embarrassing to admit” error in his analysis of precedent (though he continues to defend the result on other grounds).

Scalia did not predict that Korematsu (the 1944 SCOTUS case that validated 6-3 the WW2 Japanese internments) would be overturned, but he did say that the ruling was wrong, which puts him at odds with a “small but noteworthy group of conservatives who have defended the decision in recent years, such as Judge Richard Posner and columnist Michelle Malkin.”

“But you are kidding yourself if you think the same thing will not happen again,” he said.

He used a Latin expression to explain why.  “Inter arma enim silent leges … In times of war, the laws fall silent.”

“That’s what was going on – the panic about the war and the invasion of the Pacific and whatnot,” Scalia said.  “That’s what happens.  It was wrong, but I would not be surprised to see it happen again – in time of war.  It’s no justification but it is the reality.”