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I don't know if there's anything much to worry about for a conservative. When it comes to capital punishment, the Supreme Court justices have been more or less set in place for years now.

Stevens, Ginsburg, and Souter tend to vote to review everything, even in cases where Supreme Court precedent clearly gives no merit to the appeal.

Thomas and Scalia tend to vote to reject review always, even in cases where the death penalty could be overruled by another case pending SCOTUS review. Rehnquist was in that same camp, and it seems Roberts may now very well be also.

Kennedy, O'Connor, and Breyer were mixed in their decisions on review, but almost certainly when one pending case might overturn the death penalty in another, then they would grant a stay in the other.

It seems that Alito just falls into that camp so far as granting review. That says nothing insofar as how he will rule in the actual cases themselves.

Both O'Connor and Kennedy used to be rock-solid on the death penalty, but obviously they changed.

It seems that Alito just falls into that camp so far as granting review. That says nothing insofar as how he will rule in the actual cases themselves.

All it tells us is he exercises judicial restraint and temperament.

"Both O'Connor and Kennedy used to be rock-solid on the death penalty, but obviously they changed."

I think a lot of people have reassessed their opinions on the death sentence is light of recent situations where DNA evidence has cleared individuals.

While I support the death sentence in clear cases where there is no question of the individual's guilt, e.g. Diamonds and Megan Kanka, if there is a question of the person's guilt, it would be best to err on the side of life imprisonment.

On the other hand, I have really no patience for legal niceties which result in freeing a killer, or a nonsensical allegation that execution by injection is "cruel and unusual". If it were up to me, people like Timmendequas would be hanged. I think public hangings of clearly guilty murders is far better than the sterile, relatively innocuous trip on a gurney to an operation room for an I.V.