Finally, the confirmation process was over and Judge Alito became the 110th Justice of The Supreme Court. All of the liberal rhetoric that, "A chill wind blows. A chill wind, which will snuff out the dying light of Sandra Day O'Connor's Supreme Court legacy," said Senator Richard Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, is finally over and the draconian swing to the fuedal right can now begin.
So, what does now Justice Alito do in his first day of work? He votes with the liberals on the court to stay the execution of an inmate in Missouri convicted of raping and murdering a 15 year old girl. The convict's appeal is based on his idea that the lethal injection "is cruel and unusual punishment" or put more plainly by his attorney, it causes pain. Now the conservatives are all wondering what's going on. I read multiple stories from Drudge and other press aggregates, blog entries, all wondering how this could happen, isn't Alito really a conservative?
It seems that the answer here is pretty simple. Here is a Justice who just walked in the door (he was confirmed the afternon before and spent most of that evening at the State of the Union Address. He doesn't have a staff in place, he barely has an office (the Supreme Court Building in being remodeled at the moment), he probably doesn't even have a key to the bathroom. The first case to come in is a matter of a person's life, but he (as opposed to the others on the court) hasn't even had time to get a briefing on it. While this is a case that has been bouncing around the various courts for a time, he likely has little, if any, familiarity with the particulars and so he votes not to execute someone until he can get settled and see all the facts.
This is also manifestly what he said throughout his hearing that he would do. He's not going to be swayed by the fact that the other "conservatives" have voted one way and I doubt he was voting to stay an execution for the same reasons the liberals on the court were.
Hopefully, President Bush will get to appoint more judges cut out of the same cloth as Justice Alito.
Posted by Narnia3 at February 3, 2006 8:14 PM | TrackBack