Liberals—and, as a shorthand, many journalists—labeled Scalia a “conservative.” That was true as far as political temperament went; from his notorious friendship with Dick Cheney to his thinly veiled delight at the outcome of Bush v. Gore, Scalia was a Republican at heart. But to call him nothing more than a “conservative” would be to overlook the remarkable nuance and complexity of his jurisprudence. Scalia cast a decisive vote in the most important free speech case of the 1980s, Texas v. Johnson, which held that flag burning qualified as constitutionally protected expression. He wrote the landmark majority opinion in 2011’s Brown v. EMA, a double victory for First Amendment advocates that protected both depictions of violence and minors’ rights. And he dissented in Maryland v. King, arguing that the Fourth Amendment forbids law enforcement from collecting DNA from arrestees. (His fierce dissent sounds like it could have sprung from the pen of Edward Snowden.)

Despite his King vote, Scalia was widely viewed by many Americans as a harshly law-and-order justice. Again, that label is simply inaccurate. In many contexts, Scalia was extraordinarily protective of Americans’ right to privacy—though he himself would never use that term. He wrote the majority opinion in Kyllo v. United States, a 5-4 ruling that barred police from peeping into a home with a thermal-imaging device. He also wrote the majority opinion in Florida v. Jardines (another 5-4 decision), barring police from entering private property with a drug-sniffing dog without a warrant. Time and time again, he cast votes to protect drivers from intrusive car searches by law enforcement. Just last term, he sided against the police in a landmark ruling that restored constitutional rights to motorists illegally detained by cops.

And then there’s his view of the Confrontation Clause, which guarantees every criminal defendant the right “to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” The Framers of the Constitution intended the clause to forbid hearsay in the courtroom, allowing every defendant to cross-examine, under oath, those who offer testimonial evidence against him. Before Scalia joined the court, this crucial safeguard against faulty trial testimony had been reduced to a constitutional vestigial limb. As a justice, Scalia embarked on an astonishing and almost entirely successful crusade to restore the clause’s place in the pantheon of civil liberties. In a series of landmark rulings—many authored by Scalia himself—he endeavored to halt the trend of prosecutors introducing dubious hearsay evidence against defendants. This crusade often aligned the justice with unexpected allies, such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg (with whom he was great friends) and Sonia Sotomayor (with whom he was not). And just last term, Scalia took on his frequent ideological bedmate, Justice Samuel Alito, when he sensed Alito “shoveling … fresh dirt” on the newly restored right. The Confrontation Clause was Scalia’s fight; if he had to vote with Sotomayor or against Alito to reach the right result, so be it.