THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 
              Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: Wednesday, April 3, 1996               TAG: 9604030456
SECTION: LOCAL                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: FINAL 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS 
DATELINE: BRIDGEWATER, VA.                   LENGTH: Medium:   51 lines

IS THERE A RIGHT TO DIE? DON'T ASK SUPREME COURT, SCALIA SAYS

Giving people the right to commit suicide may be a good idea, but it's not a question the Supreme Court should decide, Justice Antonin Scalia said Tuesday.

During the past 40 years, society has asked the high court to decide whether the Constitution provides for such rights as privacy and the right to an abortion, Scalia said in a lecture at Bridgewater College.

``Why would you leave that to nine lawyers, for heaven's sake?'' he asked. ``It's better to let the people decide.''

And if the trend continues, the nine justices will have to consider their own biases more than constitutional law in deciding such issues as whether people have a right to take their own lives, Scalia said.

``I'm not a guru sitting on some windswept Tibetan mountain waiting for someone to ask a question like, `Is there a right to die?,' '' Scalia said at the private liberal arts college of 950 students in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The Constitution and Bill of Rights should be interpreted narrowly in the historical contexts in which they were framed, and a 200-year-old document cannot anticipate every problem of modern life, Scalia said.

``Take the newly emerging right to die, which may be a good idea,'' Scalia said as he pulled a copy of the Constitution from his jacket pocket. ``I can't find any right to die in here.''

``What it means is what it was understood to mean when it was adopted.''

Even though child abuse existed in 1791, the Constitution granted no exception for abused children in its guarantee that criminal defendants have the right to face their accusers, Scalia noted. He said the Supreme Court erred by allowing children to testify on videotape in abuse cases.

Scalia, one of the court's most conservative members, said such issues should be decided either through constitutional amendments or through state and federal laws.

Supreme Court justices are bad barometers of rights people want because they are out of touch with public opinion, said Scalia, a former University of Virginia law professor who was appointed to the court in 1986. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS photo

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights cannot anticipate every

problem of modern life, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

told students at Bridgewater College on Tuesday.

by CNB