Alito is scary...

Some more Alito decisions to keep in mind as we decide between outrage, horror and outright panic:

Alito voted to dismiss a case, brought by Inez Baker and three of her children, who said they had been mistreated by the police when they happened to visit an apartment during a drug raid. "There was," he wrote, "a good likelihood that visitors to the apartment were drug buyers. While it was certainly possible that there would also be some innocent visitors to the apartment (such as the Bakers), I think that there was probable cause to search anyone found on the premises."


Alito--Friend of the powerful

Or how about this: In a 1991 appeal in a murder case from the Virgin Islands in which the defendant had claimed self-defense, the trial judge failed to tell the jury that the prosecution had to prove that the killing was not in self- defense. The majority reversed on that ground. Alito disented. Though he acknowledged that it was possible that the instructions given confused the jury, he wrote, "the mere possibility of prejudice to the defendant is not enough to show plain error."

And as for covering our, often ineffective asses: In a 1997 case, the majority ordered a new trial for a man whose lawyer had advised him to plead guilty to possession of a firearm. Judge Alito disagreed, writing that the lawyer's advice "is properly viewed under our precedents as a tactical decision that, while perhaps debatable, remains safely within the expansive realm of constitutional reasonableness."

When a 1995 panel majority showed special consideration to a Pakistani man seeking to avoid deportation because he was caring for his sick brother, Judge Alito objected. He said that the decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals, or B.I.A., deserved respect and that the board had ruled that humanitarian considerations were outweighed by the man's conviction 10 years earlier for conspiring to import a pound of heroin.

Basically, Alito is the sort of judge who will protect corporations, defer to cops and generally screw the little guy, particularly if the little guy is poor, or Pakistani.