On the unseasonably hot evening of Oct. 2, 1986, a rented bus pulled up to a party on Capitol Hill. Inside, the fare was modest: cheese, crackers, canned Miller High Life. “The style — informal and relaxed — fit the man the New Jersey State Society gathered last night to honor,” reported the one journalist on hand, David R. Palombi of Allbritton News Service.
Around 6 p.m., after a bus packed with lawyers had barreled down the Jersey Turnpike, the man of honor arrived: Antonin Scalia, the Trenton native freshly sworn in as the 103rd justice of the United States Supreme Court, with his wife Maureen.
