Free Republic

ALTHOUGH abortion rights have dominated the debate over the nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. to the Supreme Court, there is another issue implicating the "culture of life" that has garnered fewer headlines: capital punishment. The impending executions of three men in California, including the lethal injection of reformed ex-gang leader Stanley Tookie Williams scheduled for Dec. 13, are a sober reminder of the irrevocable stakes in this area of law. Capital cases make up a substantial portion of the Supreme Court's docket each year. From 2000 to 2005, the court decided only three cases involving abortion but more...

When the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito begin in January, much of the debate will focus on the issue of abortion. Alito has been nominated to replace Sandra Day O'Connor, one of the six justices who reliably voted to uphold Roe v. Wade. It's unfortunate that abortion will dominate so much of the discussion about Alito. It's unlikely that a case offering the opportunity to undo Roe will come before the Supreme Court any time soon, and even if it should, Alito's confirmation would put the unofficial Supreme Court abortion scorecard at 5-4, enough to keep Roe...

From abortion to sex discrimination to family leave, some of Samuel Alito's most important rulings during 15 years on the federal bench have involved issues related to women, and some of the strongest opposition to his Supreme Court nomination comes from women's rights groups. Alito's record on these issues is not uniformly conservative. He has voted to overturn some abortion restrictions, and he wrote a groundbreaking decision in 1993 that opened the door to political asylum for women fleeing persecution in their home countries. But his opinions have more typically reached conclusions that dismayed feminist groups -- giving states more...

The writer, of Omaha, is Nebraska's junior U.S. senator.During his confirmation hearings, John Roberts said that judges should judge each case on its own merits. They need to weigh matters, not approach their work as ideological automatons.Those words were recounted in a Oct. 28 World-Herald editorial that recommended U.S. senators keep Roberts' considerations "firmly in mind" as they consider the next nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court and fulfill their obligation in considering appointees.With one successful and one unsuccessful Supreme Court nomination behind us, the Senate now is considering the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito to replace retiring Associate Justice...

A curious e-mail is making the rounds from Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy's communications director, Stephanie Cutter, attacking Judge Alito's response last week to the Senate Judiciary Committee's request for more information about Judge Alito's involvement in a case in Vanguard mutual funds was a party in name only. In Monga v. Ottenberg, a bankruptcy receiver sought to have a party's IRA assets (which included funds in a Vanguard account) made available to pay the bankrupt party's creditors. Vanguard was a party to the case because the bankrupt party sued it to prevent it from releasing his IRA funds to his...

What would Samuel Alito's confirmation mean for First Amendment law? It's impossible to be sure, but his appeals court opinions give us some clues. A Justice Alito would likely take a pretty broad view of free speech protections; support religious exemptions from some generally applicable laws; uphold evenhanded benefit programs that include both religious and secular institutions; and uphold the use of religious symbolism by the government. • Free speech. Until the late 1980s, liberal Supreme Court justices generally supported broad free speech rights, and conservative justices usually took a narrower view. No longer. I've studied the votes in free...

Click here to read a letter from Geoffrey C. Hazard, Jr., a Trustee Professor of Law at the University of PensylvaniaClick here to read a letter from Ronald D. Rotunda, a Professor of Law at George Mason University

The recent announcement by Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter that confirmation hearings on Judge Samuel Alito have been postponed until January was only the latest in a series of painful examples of what happens when Senate Republicans wimp out.Senator Specter did not wimp out. The Senate Republican "leadership" wimped out when they made him chairman of the Judiciary Committee after he had fired a shot across the bow of his own President, right after the election, publicly warning President Bush not to nominate anyone to the Supreme Court who would stir up controversy in the Senate.That was the time...

WASHINGTON -- The abortion lobby faces an uphill battle to prevent a pro-life justice from replacing a pro-choice justice on the Supreme Court. That explains why abortion rights activist Kate Michelman cited her personal history to try to generate emotion against the nomination of Federal Appellate Judge Samuel Alito. The problem is that the example she cited is inappropriate and inapplicable.Michelman, longtime former president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said Alito as a judge affirmed legislation that would have required her to notify a husband who had abandoned her of plans to get an abortion. That raised the prospect of women...

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. said yesterday that he expects an up-or-down vote by the full Senate on the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., without the parliamentary blockades that Democrats used against 10 of President Bush's appellate court nominees. The Delaware senator and longtime Senate Judiciary Committee member becomes the latest Democrat to indicate that a filibuster of the judge's nomination is unlikely, although he spoke even as one of the nation's leading liberal groups began its air war against Judge Alito. Asked whether Democrats would commit to the up-or-down vote, Mr. Biden said on ABC's...

Supreme Court: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., announced that the confirmation process for Judge Samuel Alito will be the longest in more than 14 years. Advantage: mudslingers. Former Pennsylvania Rep. Pat Toomey came within a hairsbreadth of beating incumbent Specter for the Republican nomination last year, and there was a big reason: fears that, as the new Judiciary chairman, the socially liberal senator would sabotage President Bush's promise to appoint justices in the mold of Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. Now the worries about Specter are coming true. In spite of the White House request to wrap up...

The White House decided to employ a politically-palatable, pundit-prescribed exit strategy with the withdrawal of Harriet Miers. Because of that, Miss Miers is no longer a nominee to the United States Supreme Court, and much of America may believe the Bush Administration's contention that she withdrew over a request for documents. In actuality, she withdrew because her 1993 pro-abortion speech came to light, and that was the straw that broke the camel's back for the great Dr. James Dobson, Senator Sam Brownback, Senator John Thune, and any members of the conservative base who had reserved judgment up to that point....

WASHINGTON -- Pop quiz: Which of the following abortion regulations is more restrictive, more burdensome, more likely to lead more women to forgo abortion?(a) Requiring a minor to get the informed consent of her parents, or to get a judge to approve the abortion.(b) Requiring a married woman to sign a form saying that she notified her husband.Can any reasonable person have any doubt? A minor is intrinsically far more subject to the whims, anger, punishment, economic control and retribution of a parent. And the minor is required to get both parents involved in the process and to get them...

The Republican-controlled Senate will begin hearings Jan. 9 on Judge Samuel Alito's appointment to the Supreme Court, spurning President Bush's call for a final confirmation vote before year's end. "It simply wasn't possible to accommodate the schedule that the White House wanted," Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said late Thursday. He outlined a schedule that envisions five days of hearings, followed by a vote in committee on Jan. 17 and the full Senate on Jan. 20. Bush nominated Alito on Monday to fill the seat of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who has often held the...

WASHINGTON — The so-called "Gang of 14" centrist senators who halted a filibuster fight a few months ago met Thursday to discuss Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito (search), but at least two of the group's Republicans already say there's no chance of a filibuster. "I don't believe that, with all sincerity, I could let that happen," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said before the meeting with gang members about the federal appeals court judge who President Bush nominated to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (search). Graham and Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, were taking their anti-filibuster message to the other Senate...

Judges who have served with Samuel Alito say he's unquestionably a conservative who would push the Supreme Court to the right, likely favoring new abortion restrictions that retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor would not. Five current or former judges on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals interviewed by The Associated Press described Alito as thoughtful, intelligent and fair. They said he has great respect for precedent-setting decisions and none of them offered that he would be likely to vote to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion. O'Connor, whom Alito was tapped to replace by President...

"The conservative screamers who shot down [Harriet] Miers can argue that they were fighting only for a 'qualified' nominee. . . . But whatever the rationale, the fact is that they short-circuited the confirmation process by raising hell with Bush. . . . A cabal of outsiders--a lynching squad of right-wing journalists, self-sanctified religious and moral organizations, and other frustrated power-brokers--[rolled] over the president they all ostensibly support." --David Broder, Washington Post, Nov. 2       Nothing like the calming tones of The Dean to bring context and a needed sense of perspective to the proceedings. In his comments on Sunday's "Meet the Press" and in his...

WASHINGTON - The 14 centrists who averted a Senate breakdown over judicial nominees last spring are showing signs of splintering on President Bush's latest nominee for the Supreme Court. That is weakening the hand of Democrats opposed to conservative judge Samuel Alito and enhancing his prospects for confirmation. The unity of the seven Democrats and the seven Republicans in the "Gang of 14" was all that halted a major filibuster fight between GOP leader Bill Frist and Democratic leader Harry Reid earlier this year over Bush's nominees. The early defection of two of the group's Republicans, Mike DeWine of Ohio...

In the great Alito-Scalito debate, everyone makes one mistake: They seem to assume that if Samuel Alito is as conservative as Antonin Scalia, that's about as conservative as a judge can be. Not so. In important ways, Samuel Alito could prove more conservative than Antonin Scalia. And the record suggests he will.Yes, Alito shares Justice Antonin Scalia's ambivalence toward judicial activism. Both men tout their own restraint in deferring to majorities that step on individual rights (including a woman's decision whether to bear a child). Both men also act aggressively to override majorities that touch states' rights like sovereign immunity...

Here's what you should understand about the claim that Judge Sam Alito "favors legal machine guns": It's a lie. It is also a sound bite from the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence that has been picked up by a host of pundits who would rather caricature a legal opinion than understand it. " 'Machine Gun Sammy,' a perfect Halloween pick," is how the Brady Campaign headlined President Bush's latest Supreme Court nominee. But what the Brady activists failed to acknowledge is that Alito's dissent in the 1996 case United States v. Rybar had nothing to do with a desire...