Who is Samuel Alito?

New Court Nominee—Brief Bio (biased slightly)
Samuel Alito, is a native of the State of New Jersey. For a number of years he was the United States Attorney for New Jersey during the Reagan presidency. He attended Yale law school and after a number of years as the U.S. attorney, George H. W. Bush appointed him to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. There he went on to rule in a conservative manner. He dissented in Planned Parenthood v. Case, stating that a woman who chooses to have an abortion must inform the father of her intentions. This is clearly a very conservative judge and he has been called by his colleagues “a judge’s judge.” Alito does not make sweeping rulings about the constitution. He was known as a conservative dissenter on historically liberal courts. In terms of criminal cases he again takes on strong conservatism. This judge is tough on crime as well as narrowly interprets the rights of the accused and criminals. He seems to be exactly what the current President Bush promised he would deliver. Bush has delivered a conservative judge who will shy away from activism (US News). Though, activism in the conservative realm is better defined as liberal activism.
Alito may be an activist, but a conservative one at best. His decisions in cases get much, much worse; “[I]n Doe v. Groody, Alito argued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip-searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home.” “A majority opinion in Saxe v. State, declared unconstitutional a public school district policy that prohibited harassment against students because of their sexual orientation or other characteristics. Alito reasoned that the policy was unconstitutional because it could cover what he called "simple acts of teasing and name-calling (Wikipedia)." These cases give a basic illustration of this guy. If you thought that Miers was potentially bad, this guy is a full fledged conservative nightmare. Alito, nicknamed “Scalito” because of his similarities in opinions to Justice Scalia will not be a friendly person on the bench to any type of liberally controlled government. Hopefully there will be enough votes to prevent this guy from getting confirmed, but any filibuster will just be a temporary pause in hope of yet another person.
As stated above, this guy is 55, which means he is still young and could easily have a 25+ year term on the court, which also means that he will be around for a while. On a positive note, he is very intelligent and scholarly; it is just everything else that is troubling. His appointment along with that of Chief Justice Roberts, could substantially affect previous court rulings. Only time will tell.

Celia