On the Contrary (Dissents Show Alito's Judicial Conservatism)

As an appeals court judge, Samuel Alito has compiled a massive record that includes more than 240 opinions. Of these, the most illuminating may well be his 41 dissents -- opinions that he has written by himself, rejecting the views of his colleagues.

When they touch on issues that split people along political lines, Alito's dissents show a remarkable pattern: They are almost uniformly conservative. In the overwhelming majority of cases, he has urged a more conservative position than that of his colleagues. In his dissents, at least, he has been a conservative's conservative -- not always in his reasoning, which tends to be modest, but in his ultimate conclusions.

A woman and her 10-year-old child sued police officers for engaging in a body search in violation of their constitutional rights. The court allowed the case to go forward. Alito dissented, arguing that the police had qualified immunity.

Prisoners in long-term segregation units were banned from receiving newspapers or magazines from either the prison library or the publisher. The majority struck down the ban as a violation of the First Amendment. Alito dissented, finding the ban to be within the prison's legal authority.

A trial court had refused to allow an employee who complained of racial discrimination to cross-examine a witness who had given the employee an unfavorable performance evaluation. The court ordered that the cross-examination must be permitted. Alito argued in favor of the trial court's rulings.

"A woman and her 10-year-old child sued police officers for engaging in a body search in violation of their constitutional rights. The court allowed the case to go forward. Alito dissented, arguing that the police had qualified immunity."

It would be nice if at least the reporter writing this article read these dissents. The strip search case decision was based on the validity of the warrant, which the police requested and understood to cover all personnel in the meth house they were busting.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012114.php

These ignorant reporters thing judges make law, or make decisions about events. Judges interpret laws. Judges make decisions about the laws surrounding cases.

Alito's decision on Pennsylvania's abortion spousal notification law had little to do with abortion, and everything to do with Stare Decisis. His dissent is a long treatise on SCJ O'Connor's definition of "undue burden".

See:

http://www.confirmthem.com/?p=1764#comment-62642

Oh, and by the way, there were four exceptions to the spousal notification requirement in the challenged Pennsylvania law:

A woman was not required to notify her husband if (1) her husband is not the father; (2) her husband, after diligent effort, cannot be located; (3) the pregnancy was the result of a spousal sexual assault that has been reported to the authorities; or (4) the woman had reason to believe that notifying her husband was likely to result in the infliction of bodily injury upon her by him or by another individual. In addition, a woman was exempted from the notification requirement in the case of a medical emergency.

These exceptions were large enough to drive a Mack truck through. You don't hear about these exception from the MSM. What you here is Judge Alito wanted to force women to notify their spouses if they got an abortion.

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