Former US appeals judge and legal scholar Richard Posner dies at 87

Right · 1Richard Posner, a former judge on the Chicago-based 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals and a leading legal scholar, has died at 87. 1 Right · 2The University of Chicago Law School, where he had long taught, said he died on Tuesday; Reason's Ilya Somin wrote in a post dated 11 November that Posner had "passed away today". 1 2 Right · 2Posner was appointed to the appeals court in 1981 by Republican President Ronald Reagan, served 36 years, and retired in 2017, writing more than 3,000 opinions. 1 2

Right · 2He wrote over 500 articles and 50 books and was a pioneer of law and economics, which examines legal rules through economic efficiency and incentives; his book Economic Analysis of Law, first published in the early 1970s, helped define the field. 1 2 Right · 1Other works Somin singled out include Sex and Reason, How Judges Think, Reflections on Judging and Law and Literature, and he noted Posner was known for drafting almost all his opinions himself rather than relying on law clerks. 2 Right · 1Reuters reported that Posner was born in New York City to Jewish parents he once called "limousine radicals", entered Yale College at 16 and graduated first in his class from Harvard Law School at 23. 1

Right · 1Posner called himself a pragmatist focused on real-world consequences, and although long viewed as a conservative he became a sharp critic of originalism; in 1990 he called it a "magnificent disguise", and in 2012 he accused Justice Antonin Scalia of "incoherence", which Scalia rejected in a Reuters interview as "a lie". 1 Right · 1In later years he wrote rulings on abortion and LGBTQ rights that liberal advocates praised, including a 2014 opinion calling Wisconsin's and Indiana's defences of same-sex marriage bans "totally implausible"; the Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage the next year. 1 Right · 1He retired abruptly in September 2017, telling the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin he was not getting along with other judges because of concern over how self-represented litigants were treated; his lawyers later disclosed in a legal dispute that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease about six months after leaving the bench. 1

Right · 1He is survived by his wife Charlene Horn and two sons, Kenneth and Eric, the latter a well-known law professor. 1 Right · 1Somin, who often criticised Posner's work, including his defence of Kelo v. City of New London, wrote that Posner commanded respect across the political and jurisprudential spectrum and was generous to students and younger colleagues. 2