OpinionJournal.com

I wound up chatting at a reception a couple years ago with Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia about his love of opera and his taste in popular culture. It turned out he was a huge fan of Fox's anti-terrorist drama "24," and he convinced me to watch it for the first time.Well, little did I know just how much of a fan Justice Scalia is of the fast-paced show. The Globe and Mail newspaper in Canada reports he positively gushed about the Fox series recently at a conference on homeland security in the Canadian capital of Ottawa that was attended by an international panel of judges. Mr. Scalia couldn't refrain from commenting after Canadian federal Judge Richard Mosley opined: "Thankfully, security agencies in all our countries do not subscribe to the mantra, 'What would Jack Bauer do?'"As viewers know, Jack Bauer, played by Kiefer Sutherland, is a federal agent known for roughing up suspected terrorists who are holding out on important information."Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles!" Mr. Scalia interjected. "He saved hundreds of thousands of lives!" Indeed, Mr. Scalia was just warming up. "Are you going to convict Jack Bauer? Say that criminal law is against him?" he asked rhetorically. "Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I don't think so!"Other panelists promptly challenged the American jurist, arguing that some prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay on terrorism charges could be innocent. "I don't care about holding people. I really don't," Judge Scalia replied. After the panel broke up, he continued to wax enthusiastically about his favorite show.If I were the producers of "24" I would immediately invite Mr. Scalia to make a guest appearance on the series. Judicial decorum would probably prevent him from doing so, but who wouldn't want to see the highly expressive Mr. Scalia in the role of a judge presiding over the trial of an accused terrorist? -- John Fund