Alito & the ACLU

The ACLU has a statement on why they are against Alito. They give these specific cases:

• Wrote a dissent in Planned Parenthood v. Casey arguing that a state's spousal notification requirement did not unduly burden a woman's right to privacy, a position later rejected by the Supreme Court;
• Joined a dissent arguing that a student-led prayer at a high school graduation ceremony did not violate the Establishment Clause;
• Wrote several dissents arguing for tighter standards for plaintiffs seeking trial on their race, gender and disability discrimination claims;
• Dissented from a decision ruling that the strip search of a suspect's wife and ten-year-old daughter exceeded the scope of the search warrant and was therefore unconstitutional;
• Rejected a death row inmate's ineffective assistance of counsel claim where the trial counsel had failed to uncover substantial mitigating evidence — a decision later reversed by the Supreme Court;
• Dissented from an en banc ruling in a death penalty case arguing that the prosecution had unconstitutionally used its peremptory challenges to exclude all the black prospective jurors;
• Wrote a dissent arguing that a policy prohibiting all prisoners in long-term segregation from possessing newspapers, magazines or photographs unless they were religious or legal did not violate the First Amendment.

This list is disingenuous. I am familiar with some of these cases. The first one, for example, called for a woman's husband to be notified that she was having an abortion. Since the husband is assumed to be the father and financially responsible for a baby, it seems reasonable that he also has an interest in the child's abortion.

The ACLU is against any public expresion of religion. They don't mention that the SCOTUS sides with Alito on this one.

As someone who has been a supervisor for more than 20 yeas, I've heard several minoriies claim discrimination when there was none. Raising the bar forfiling complaints seems fair to me.

In the strip search case, the police asked for a warrant to search everyone on the premise. They assumed that their request had been honored and that only one name on the warrant was listed because of space limitations. Alito felt that the police had acted in good faith and could not be sued.

I assume that the ACLU's objections on death penalty cases have more to do with their blanket objection to the death penalty.

Their real objection is summarized early in their statement:

Perhaps the best description of Judge Alito's overall philosophy was provided by Judge Alito himself in 1985, when he submitted a now well-publicized letter to the Reagan Administration seeking a position with the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. “I am and always have been a conservative,” he wrote, “and an adherent to the same philosophical views that I believe are central to this Administration.”

They might as well have stopped there.