Free Republic

A sad reminder of what Catholics in public office still face: U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito voiced frustration Tuesday over what he called persistent questions about the court's Roman Catholic majority. Alito aired the topic in a speech to an Italian-American law group in Philadelphia. "There has been so much talk lately about the number of Catholics serving on the Supreme Court," Alito said in a speech to the Justinian Society. "This is one of those questions that does not die." Alito complained about "respectable people who have seriously raised the questions in serious publications about whether these...

With three new members in the past four years and the prospect of more change ahead, the Supreme Court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. commences this week what could be a transformative term. New Justice Sonia Sotomayor will receive the most attention, as President Obama's historic choice begins to reveal the judicial philosophy that remained largely cloaked during her confirmation hearings. And speculation will build about whether a retirement by one of the aging liberal justices will give Obama another opportunity to make his mark.

Senator Ted Kennedy has died.

Yes, this slug of a human being actually called Sam Alito "Alioto" during his confirmation. He didn't succeed in killing the nomination but 40 years ago did succeed in killing Mary Jo. MIDI - BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER (musical intro) Alioto, you will be grilled Before we're done with you, we'll have had our fill You racist scum, we'll certainly be exposing you So I am warning you There's a bridge off of which I'll drive you if you don't withdraw There's a bridge off of which I'll drive you if you don't withdraw I failed lifeguard class...you know that...

Breaking on CNBC: USSC delays Chyrsler asset sale! Mourdock: USe of Tarp Funds in automotive industry was illegal Obama admin had urged USSC NOT to keep chrysler deal on hold

Jim Manzi on the argument from the left that Sotomayor's "wise Latina" comment is being taken out of context: I’m not so sure it looks better in context. ~~~ ...Sotomayor makes the indisputable point that decisions made by judges are at least partially impacted by their biological characteristics and life experiences. Human judgment clearly plays a role in such decisions; hence the need for human judges, as opposed to “law interpreting algorithms” in the first place. A key point, of course, is that in the passage under consideration, she goes beyond this and asserts not just that her decisions would...

First President in US History to Have Voted to Filibuster a Supreme Court Nominee Now Hopes for Clean Process May 30, 2009 1:08 PM President Obama's expressed hope today in his weekly address "that we can avoid the political posturing and ideological brinksmanship that has bogged down this (Supreme Court nomination) process, and Congress, in the past" runs against another historical first for the 44th president: his unique role in history as the first US President to have ever voted to filibuster a Supreme Court nominee. So while there is little indication Republicans intend to filibuster President Obama's nominee for...

Daily Kos dug up some video from Samuel Alito's confirmation hearings that might take some wind out of the sails of Sonia Sotomayor's opponents. Conservatives have criticized Obama for seeking an "empathetic" justice and have lamented that Sotomayor says her life experiences will inform her judicial decisions. Here's an exchange between Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Alito that comes pretty close to endorsing the empathy-and-experience concept: [VIDEO AT LINK]

Earlier today, I posted the "lawyers' evaluation" of Judge Sotomayor that appears in the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary. The evaluation, based on interviews with lawyers who have appeared before Sotomayor, was favorable on the whole, but hardly glowing. To see what a glowing evaluation looks like, check out the lawyers' evaluation of Samuel Alito at the time he was nominated for the Supreme Court. (Like Sotomayor, Alito was a federal court of appeals judge then): Lawyers interviewed praised Alito's legal acumen. "He is exceptional." "He has brilliant ability." "He is even more exceptional than Becker. He is a brilliant...

Earlier this year, the committee was made up of eleven Democrats and eight Republicans. Then Sen. Arlen Specter switched sides. Majority Democrats did not allow Republicans to replace Specter, turning an 11-8 committee into a 12-7 panel. The committee has not been that unevenly divided in decades, and it's a huge advantage for the majority party. "They could nominate Michael Moore and the Democratic caucus would confirm him," a dejected Republican aide told me.

Justice Samuel Alito was the featured keynote speaker at the American Spectator’s annual Robert L. Bartley dinner at Washington’s Mandarin Oriental hotel last night. Along with taking a crack at the new vice-president elect (h/t Politico), he also joked about the famous 2008 Obama campaign mantra of “Hope and Change.” (Eyeblast.tv has the audio uploaded here:)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned the conviction of a black Louisiana death row inmate because race had played an improper role in the selection of an all-white jury. By a 7-2 vote, the high court ruled for Allen Snyder, who had been convicted and sentenced to death in 1996 for stabbing his estranged wife 15 times and killing a man with whom she was talking. During jury selection in New Orleans, prosecutor James Williams excluded five black potential jurors, resulting in an all-white jury. Defense attorneys objected to the removal of two of the potential...

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. -- Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito Jr. has convicted "The Sopranos" of spreading what he says are stereotypes about Italian-Americans. During a visit to Rutgers University on Wednesday, Alito complained that the hit HBO television drama not only associated Italian-Americans with the Mafia, but New Jerseyans, as well. "You have a trifecta _ gangsters, Italian-Americans, New Jersey _ wedded in the popular American imagination," Alito said at an event sponsored by the Italian studies program at Rutgers, the state university of New Jersey. Alito, himself an Italian-American, lived for nearly two decades in a West Caldwell home...

Robert Novak confirms John Fund's deeply troubling account of John McCain's suspicion of Samuel Alito: ~~~“In fact, multiple sources confirm that the senator made negative comments about Alito nine months ago. … “I found what McCain could not remember: a private, informal chat with conservative Republican lawyers shortly after he announced his candidacy in April 2007. I talked to two lawyers who were present whom I have known for years and who have never misled me. One is neutral in the presidential race, and the other recently endorsed Mitt Romney. Both said they were not Fund's source, and neither knew...

© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com Samuel Alito Sen. John McCain has denied a report that he privately suggested Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was too conservative, but columnist Robert Novak writes today that multiple sources confirm the presidential candidate made negative comments about Alito nine months ago. McCain previously responded to the buzz started by a report Monday by the Wall Street Journal's John Fund, who wrote that the Arizona senator "has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito because...

On Monday, the day before the Florida primary, John Fund reported that John McCain had told a group of lawyers that while he would appoint a John Roberts to the SCOTUS, he might draw the line at appointing a Sam Alito because he “wore his conservatism on his sleeve.” McCain’s campaign initially responded with a sort of offended non-response, but by the day’s end McCain had offered up an unequivocal denial to NRO’s Byron York.

Last week, John Fund took some heat over his reporting, based on multiple sources, that John McCain said he might not be inclined to nominate another Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, because he wore his conservatism on his sleeve. That created a stir and a puzzled rebuttal from the McCain camp, which noted that he had supported the actual Alito nomination. They didn't deny that McCain made the remark, but noted that Fund couldn't give a specific time and place for it and doubted it had been said at all. Today, Robert Novak corroborates Fund and places the remark...

John Fund writes: Mr. McCain bruised his standing with conservatives on the issue when in 2005 he became a key player in the so-called gang of 14, which derailed an effort to end Democratic filibusters of Bush judicial nominees. More recently, Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because “he wore his conservatism on his sleeve.” My hostility to John McCain is well known to regular readers, and it’s tempting to believe this....

You've got to be kidding me. This isn't how you warm your relationship with the conservative base... "More recently, Mr. McCain has told conservatives he would be happy to appoint the likes of Chief Justice John Roberts to the Supreme Court. But he indicated he might draw the line on a Samuel Alito, because "he wore his conservatism on his sleeve."" It's been mentioned twice on the Corner so far today, and I'll bet this quote is rocketing around the Internet a lot today... even if this doesn't burn McCain in Florida, that comment will be in play in Wednesday...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 30 — Moments before a Mississippi prisoner was scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution by a 7-to-2 vote and thus gave a nearly indisputable indication that a majority intends to block all executions until the court decides a lethal injection case from Kentucky next spring. Neither the majority nor the two dissenters, Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel A. Alito Jr., gave reasons for their positions. The stay will remain in effect until the full court reviews an appeal filed on Monday by lawyers for the inmate, Earl...

The recent claims that newly-confirmed Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito were ignoring precedent, contrary to their confirmation hearings pledges, are partisan chum hurled into the waters where swim the most radical members of the Democratic base. I have earlier examined the general scope of the doctrine of stare decisis which requires Supreme Court Justices to give great weight under appropriate circumstance to prior rulings of the Court and to the statements both Justices gave on the issue during their confirmation hearings for American Thinker readers

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his former colleague in the Solicitor General's office, attorney Carter Phillips, talked about Supreme Court advocacy and deliberation. The conversation covered both sides of the bench with Justice Alito discussing what expectations he has of the arguments before him, and Carter Phillips talking about his strategy when presenting case to the Court. Mr. Phillips has argued 54 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Pepperdine University School of Law Dean Starr and Consitutional Law Professor Kmiec facilitated the conversation. Opening remarks by Ken Starr included reflections on William French Smith, the 74th attorney general. Pepperdine...

Schumer says No More Judges for Bush By Peter J. Smith WASHINGTON, D.C., July 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - President Bush can expect to make no more Supreme Court judicial appointments "except in extraordinary circumstances" according to Senate Judiciary Chairman Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). "We should reverse the presumption of confirmation. The Supreme Court is dangerously out of balance," Schumer said Friday at the American Constitution Society convention in Washington. "We cannot afford to see Justice Stevens replaced by another Roberts, or Justice Ginsburg by another Alito." Schumer and other Democrats fear that another justice like Justice Alito could presage the...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- One of the top pro-abortion Democrats in the Senate says he wants Congress to slow down on confirming the next Supreme Court nominee if President Bush has a chance to pick one more before the end of his term. Sen. Charles Schumer, of New York, commented on the same day a poll showed a majority of Americans backed the high court's decision in the partial-birth abortion case. Schumer said on Friday at the American Constitution Society convention that the Senate should only confirm Bush's next high court nominee "in extraordinary circumstances" and should "reverse the presumption...

WHEN a majority of Supreme Court justices adopt a manifestly ideological agenda, it plunges the court into the vortex of American politics. If the Roberts court has entered voluntarily what Justice Felix Frankfurter once called the “political thicket,� it may require a political solution to set it straight. The framers of the Constitution did not envisage the Supreme Court as arbiter of all national issues. As Chief Justice John Marshall made clear in Marbury v. Madison, the court’s authority extends only to legal issues. When the court overreaches, the Constitution provides checks and balances. In 1805, after persistent political activity...

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) plans to review the Senate testimony of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel A. Alito to determine if their reversal of several long-standing opinions conflicts with promises they made to senators to win confirmation. Specter, who championed their confirmation, said Tuesday he will personally re-examine the testimony to see if their actions in court match what they told the Senate. "There are things he has said, and I want to see how well he has complied with it," Specter said, singling out Roberts.The Specter inquiry poses a potential political problem for the GOP...

The Court’s liberal critics are especially exercised by Justice Alito, who in a few cases voted differently than the justice he replaced, Sandra Day O’Connor. These critics say that the rule of law is eroded when the outcome of a case depends on who’s sitting on the bench. This critique comes a little late in the seasons of our experience. We don’t recall any of the legal experts who are condemning Alito having urged Ruth Bader Ginsburg to follow the example of the justice she replaced, Byron White, who dissented from the liberal constitutional agenda on abortion and gay rights.

Just say no. The Senate's Democratic majority -- joined by all Republicans who purport to be moderate -- must tell President Bush that this will be their answer to any controversial nominee to the Supreme Court or the appellate courts. The Senate should refuse even to hold hearings on Bush's next Supreme Court choice, should a vacancy occur, unless the president reaches agreement with the Senate majority on a mutually acceptable list of nominees. And no Bush nominee to a lower court deserves any deference now that we learn that U.S. Appeals Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh may have misled the...

Justice Alito for the Court [Jonathan Adler] Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion for the Court in two 5-4 decisions handed down today, according to SCOTUSBlog . . . . More to follow. UPDATE: In the first of these two Alito opinions, the Court held that the Endangered Species Act does not trump other federal environmental laws. In the second, the Court held that taxpayers lack standing to challenge the federal government's faith-based initiative. A taxpayer group had sought to argue that the faith-based initiative violated the Establishment Clause. 06/25 10:19 AM

WASHINGTON - Iraq remains chaotic and immigration overhaul faces an uncertain fate. But if President Bush wants to sing the old tune, “They can’t take that away from me” he can turn to the Supreme Court where his appointees Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito sit. As the high court nears the end of its 2006-2007 term, the impact of Bush’s appointees is becoming clearer. In high profile-decisions, Roberts and Alito have bolstered the conservative wing, which includes Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and occasionally Justice Anthony Kennedy. Former Reagan administration Justice Department official Doug Kmiec,...

As we enter the last few decision days of the Term – with 17 cases remaining – I want to raise the prospect that the Term will ultimately reveal that the Court’s ideological shift has been far more profound than almost anyone outside the building has realized so far. Here are the numbers to this point. Eleven cases have been decided by a five-to-four vote on classic ideological lines. Justice Kennedy has cast the deciding vote in each – six times with the right and five with the left. Those results suggest a balanced outcome. But the numbers are very...

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. made it clear as he began taking questions at yesterday's National Italian American Foundation luncheon that he couldn't reveal any of the Supreme Court's forthcoming opinions. But did he at least give a hint? Two of the court's biggest remaining cases focus on the First Amendment, and while Alito didn't mention either, he did make it clear that any restrictions on speech face a high hurdle with him. "I'm a very strong believer in the First Amendment and the right of people to speak and to write," Alito said in response to a question of...

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court limited workers' ability to sue for pay discrimination Tuesday, ruling against a Goodyear employee who earned thousands of dollars less than her male counterparts but waited too long to complain. The 5-4 decision underscored a provision in a federal civil rights law that sets a 180-day deadline for employees to claim they are being paid less because of their race, sex, religion or national origin.

WASHINGTON --In his 15 months on the Supreme Court, Justice Samuel Alito has been everything his conservative supporters expected and his liberal detractors feared. The newest justice has been a reliable vote in favor of the death penalty, expanded police powers and restrictions on abortion. Alito has yet to write an opinion on a major constitutional issue, not uncommon for someone so new to the court. And he has been more measured than Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, declining to join their call to overturn the court's landmark Roe v. Wade decision on abortion, for instance. "He has been...

Just seven years ago, Justice O’Connor voted with the court’s liberals to strike down a similar Nebraska law banning the procedure, known medically as intact dilation and extraction. It involves removing an intact fetus rather than dismembering the fetus in the uterus. The decision recast the court’s approach to abortion, shifting its emphasis toward fetal life and away from deference to medical judgments about women’s health. The decision last week brought into focus the greatest hopes of conservatives and the worst fears of liberals. Is the court about to make sweeping changes in important areas of constitutional law, including in...

This is why presidential elections matter even if and when you don't particularly like one candidate or the other. The re-election of George W. Bush in 2004 begat the nomination to the United States Supreme Court of Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr. and Justice Alito's ascenion to the High Court last year begat today a landmark abortion ruling that anti-abortion advocates have pushed to get for years. You can spin this any other way you want but in the end it comes down to a simple matter of personnel. Justice Alito was willing and able to go in the law...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. – Samuel Alito liked being on this bench, too. Dressed in a green Devil Rays jersey instead of a black robe, the Supreme Court justice stood in the dugout Saturday, getting ready to throw out the first ball before Tampa Bay played his favorite team, the Philadelphia Phillies. Asked what he would throw, Alito said, “A gyroball.” Dressed in a green Devil Rays jersey instead of a black robe, Associate Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito throws out the first pitch before a spring training game between the Phillies and Tampa Bay Devil Rays Saturday. Devil Rays reliever...

SIMI VALLEY How does Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito describe the last year, when he endured a bruising confirmation fight in the Senate to land a seat on the nation's highest court? "I sometimes feel as if I had an out of body experience," he said. Speaking Tuesday to a capacity crowd at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, Alito described the highs and lows that came with being plucked from the relative quiet of a seat on the federal bench in New Jersey and landing in the spotlight of Washington politics. It was, he said, "certainly quite a change." Hounded...

Samuel A. Alito Jr. vividly remembers the first few hours of his new job. The Senate had just approved his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court and he had been whisked into the high court for his swearing-in. There was lunch with his new colleagues, then he was shown around his new chambers, formerly occupied by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. He was exhausted after a partisan three-month battle over his confirmation, but the weight of it all was just beginning to lift. He was thinking vacation. Then a law clerk came looking for him. Michael Taylor, a Missouri man convicted...

What is it about Michael Chertoff, President Bush's unqualified, unsuccessful, unrepentant and yet still unreplaced Homeland Security Secretary? After (1) bungling the federal response to Hurricane Katrina by treating FEMA as an unwanted step-child in a massive Homeland Security Department focused on the War on Terror and (2) hamstringing former FEMA Director Michael D. Brown by officially putting him in charge and then tethering him to Baton Rouge when he needed to be in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coat, it was Mr. Chertoff who should have resigned, but did not. For an encore, Mr. Chertoff ran Homeland Security...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in his old chambers in Newark, N.J., earlier this month. Asked if he ever questioned himself and his pursuit of the high court seat during the tense period leading up to his Senate confirmation, Alito said: "Like every day." (Photo by Noah Addis) Justice and Wife Look Back on Confirmation Ordeal BY KATE COSCARELLI U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in his old chambers in Newark, N.J., earlier this month. Asked if he ever questioned himself and his pursuit of the high court seat during the tense period leading up to his Senate...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three quarters of Americans can correctly identify two of Show White's seven dwarfs while only a quarter can name two Supreme Court Justices, according to a poll on pop culture released on Monday. According to the poll by Zogby International, commissioned by the makers of a new game show on pop culture called "Gold Rush," 57 percent of Americans could identify J.K. Rowling's fictional boy wizard as Harry Potter, while only 50 percent could name the British prime minister, Tony Blair. The pollsters spoke to 1,213 people across the United States. The results had a margin...

I have had the honor of serving on the Senate Judiciary Committee for 43 years, during which I've participated in confirmation hearings for every one of the justices who now sit on the Supreme Court. Over that time, my colleagues and I have asked probing questions and listened attentively to substantive responses. Because we were able to learn a great deal about the nominees from those hearings, the Senate has rarely voted along party lines. I voted, for example, for three of President Ronald Reagan's five Supreme Court nominees... But the careful, bipartisan process of years past -- like so...

Just six months after quitting the all-male social club to which he belonged for 50 years, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy is questioning one of President Bush's nominees to the federal bench about his membership in an all-male dining club. "What is your reason for failing to resign from the club any earlier than February 2, 2006?" Mr. Kennedy demanded in writing of Oklahoma lawyer Jerome A. Holmes, nominated to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Documents provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee and obtained by The Washington Times show that Mr. Holmes belonged to the Men's Dinner Club of...

This year's nine day festival here in Philly will feature: On Independence Day - Justice Samuel Alito giving a speech at Independence Hall on Independence Day, the tapping of the Liberty Bell by descendants of the signers, and the laser scanning of the Liberty Bell. Also there will be the Southwest Airlines parade and a concert on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway on the steps of the Art Museum by Lionel Ritchie, American Idol winner Fantasia, and the Philly Pops orchestra. Followed by a fireworks and laser show spectacular. On July 3 there will be another concert by Peter Nero and...

As the Supreme Court wraps up its session, there has been so far fairly little attention paid to the fact that this is when U.S. Supreme Court retirements are typically announced. All of the last 14 retirements were announced between May 14th and October 1st of their respective years; the last to retire outside of those dates was Charles Whittaker, whose doctor ordered him to retire on account of a worsening disability making it impossible for him to sit at his bench. Of those 14, 9 announced their retirement between June 12 and August 3rd, a space of only seven...

WASHINGTON - New Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito broke a tie Monday to rule that Kansas' death penalty law is constitutional. By a 5-to-4 vote, the justices said the Kansas Supreme Court incorrectly interpreted the Eighth Amendment's protection against cruel and unusual punishment to strike down the state's death penalty statute.

by Mark Finkelstein June 25, 2006 As Brit Hume put it, "Senator Specter, who gets worked up over anything, he doesn't seem bothered by the NY Times disclosure of [the anti-terror banking program]. He's going to 'look into it'." Indeed. Specter, who began his political career as a prosecutor, played defense lawyer for the Gray Lady. On this morning's Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace asked the senior senator from PA "do you think the Times was wrong to publish this story as well as the NSA warrantless wiretap story, and does it rise to the level that they should...

The Supreme Court made it easier yesterday for workers in most parts of the country to sue employers for retaliating against them when they complain about sexual harassment or other discrimination. The court ruled that employees may collect damages, even in some cases where the punishment did not involve getting fired or losing wages.The decision, which had the full support of eight justices, expands the legal rights of millions of workers who are covered by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the main federal law against job discrimination, and their employers. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. agreed with...

I said in my posting below, on today’s Hudson v. Michigan ruling, that the Court found “no constitutional violation occurred” in the course of the police entry into the defendant’s home. Well, I’d say no constitutional violation occurred if I were deciding the case, but that’s not what the Court said. The opinion for the Court by Justice Scalia held that the Fourth Amendment’s “knock and announce” rule was indeed violated, but that no purpose would be served by the invocation of the exclusionary rule in a case like this, so the evidence obtained in the course of the search...