Talk:Samuel Alito

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Samuel Alito article.
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[edit] Reminder to sign posts

Hello, this is a reminder that it is Wikipedia policy to sign your post on discussion page. Please sign your comment by typing four tildes (~~~~). Thanks, Johntex\talk 17:11, 31 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Controversial Nature of Nomination, Confirmation and Alito in General

I am new to this, but I agree with others that this article does not properly address the controversial nature of Alito. The appointment/confirmation part on the ABA makes it sound as if this was just another appointment. He is one of three Supreme Court nominations to be opposed by the ACLU in its entire history. He is the definition of controversial appointment/justice. While this is addressed more thoroughly in the article on his appointment this is also important to this article. All supporters and opponents should not be listed in this article, but his controversial nature should be made clear. For this reason I added something on the ACLU because the ACLU opposition underlines just how controversial his nomination was. The introduction of the article writes that “He is regarded as a generally conservative jurist.” This simply does not describe his controversial nature. Many democrats would characterize him as a radical ultraconservative along the lines of Robert Bork. This widely held opinion should be addressed in the article. --Wikipediatoperfection 2:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

An example of his wily use of logic: The death penalty is constitutional, it follows that there exists a constitutional means of carrying out the death penalty. And again: the AMA affirms that participation of medical personnel in administering the death penalty is unethical, therefore it is unfeasible to find a better method than the present 3-dose protocol (since the doctors will not cooperate), therefore the present method is constitutional. (See what he did there?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.205.183.4 (talk) 12:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Confirmation votes

Shouldn't the confirmation vote record be on the Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination page? Jpers36 16:16, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree none of the other SCOTUS Justice pages have this level of detail. --Paul 16:32, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

None of the othe SCOTUS judges have been so strongly opposed by half the Senate. 69.164.66.203

False. Clarence Thomas was confirmed by a closer margin: 52-48. Jpers36 22:59, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
  • (After edit conflict) Actually, Clarence Thomas was confirmed by a smaller margin. Johntex\talk 23:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Agree -- remove that info from this page - uneccesary duplication of info found at Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination Johntex\talk 23:47, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Mild Dissagree - We should keep it on, and add the other votes to the other Justice's pages. WikieZach 21:04, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Mildly Disagree about Mild Dissagree Who is going to go back and research the voting for the other 110 Justices? (Hint, this can't be done using the Internet). And, what possible use would such information be? --Paul 23:08, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disussion about Votes

I'm just saying we should start now, as well as complete the votes for the other eight standing justices, not all 110! WikieZach 23:20, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 96th

The article says that he is the 96th assoc. justice. That seems correct (110 justices - chief justices who weren't promoted), but we need a ref. Can anyone find one? BrokenSegue 23:22, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

I can get one in about a minute (i work at cnn!) WikieZach 23:40, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

Not that good but here: [1]

That ref says he's 110th, but doesn't say that he is the 96th associate justice. BrokenSegue 00:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC) It was User:Damario0 who added the 96th fact. He has no user page or talk page. BrokenSegue 00:28, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tie breaking on cases already argued

Regarding these recent changes:

Before:

By joining the court mid-tern, Alito has not heard arguments for many cases which have yet to be decided. If there is a deadlock in pending cases, Alito may be asked to break the tie, and the cases would be reheard in the fall term. Alternatively, the tie could stand, and the decision of the court below would be affirmed, without creating precedent.

After:

By joining the court mid-term, Alito has not heard arguments for many cases which have yet to be decided. If there is a deadlock in pending cases, Alito may be asked to break the tie, the court could rehear the cases in the fall term, or the tie could stand and the decision of the court below would be affirmed.

This does tighten things up, but it also changes the meaning. I'm not sure that Alito can vote on a case which was argued while he was not a member of the court? Although I haven't found a reference yet, my understanding is that he has to hear the arguments before he can vote on a case. Thus, if Alito is asked to break the tie, the case must be reheard. --Paul 20:08, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

He can't break the tie, I'm not sure where that came from. The court can vote without him, and if it is 4/4, then they can decide whether to leave it at that, in which case it's essentially the same effect as a cert. denied. In the alternative, they can decide to rehear the case, which means they start all over from the beginning with Alito instead of O'Connor. I do not know how many judges have to vote to rehear for a rehearing to take place. Peyna 20:15, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

I still think it is slightly inaccurate. For one, I don't believe the court can force a rehearing on its own motion. What would have to happen is that the court announces their decision of a tie, which means the lower court's decision is affirmed. Then the losing party would move for a rehearing, which the court could grant and then Alito would be able to be involved in that hearing and the decision of the court. An even-split court's decision is not all that much of a rarity, it happens more often in the case where one justice will recuse themselves from the case, and the same rules apply. Of course, all of these "rules" are set by the court itself and could be changed by the court unless that change really upset Congress, but Congress usually lets the court handle its internal workings. Peyna 20:59, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't Roe v. Wade reargued after a change in Court makeup and before issuing the decision? Isn't it possible for the court to ask for additional arguments on a case it hasn't decided, specifying the question it wanted argued? --Paul 21:04, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I guess you're right, it does appear the court can vote to have a rehearing without a motion by one of the parties. I wonder if the rule of 4 is followed for that purpose? Peyna 21:17, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
I guess we won't know until (unless) it happens, which it most likly will. WikieZach 21:18, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Picture

Can anyone find a better picture of Justice Alito than the one at the top of his biography page? Maybe an offical portait as Chief Justice Roberts and the other assoc. justices have on their bio. pages?

  • No official image of Alito has been taken. As soon as the official picture is published, it will be added to the article.<<Coburn_Pharr>> 12:42, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060303/ids_photos_ts/r1145697098.jpg this is as close to a official scotus picture as possible thus far, should post it.


I added the official Alito photo that came out today. It has a nice "old school" feel to it. Compare to the one from the Harry Blackmun article. Nice.<<Coburn_Pharr>> 06:13, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] this page feels POV to me

i'm not going to POV tag the whole page at this point, but this does *NOT* feel like a balanced page. it looks like it was intentionally written to hide the controversy over alito. if you had no idea who he was, you would *NOT* get a clear idea of how controversial he is or how conservative he is. there is no "controversy" section at all, as is usual for controversial topics, and in his section on his supreme court career, far more space is devoted to discussions of how he's "not like scalia", when an examination of his voting record would surely show for more votes with scalia than against him. i POV tagged the section for this reason. it also has questionable statements like "... hints at Alito's respectful attitude toward precedent", which sounds like press-release fodder.

nb the article contains an error; hamdan v. rumsfeld was voted 5-3, not 5-4, as roberts did not vote.

Benwing 20:04, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

The Alito nomination page has a lot about the controversy. Actually, I think the nomination page, or the nomination and confirmation hearing sections of this page, are appropriate places to discuss the controversy. So far, Alito hasn't been on the Court long enough to generate significant Supreme Court-related controversy.

The Supreme Court section talks about how he votes fairly conservatively, with notes on how he created a 5-4 conservative majority in the three reargued cases, as well as his votes with the conservatives in Hamdan and Rapanos. That's five of the major cases, in the mere half Term he's been on the Court. That can probably be beefed up, but since so many of the cases are either unanimous (or nearly so) or split along not-quite-left-right lines, it couldn't be beefed up that much using only cases from the last half-Term. There's only one example of how he's voted non-conservatively. And the non-Scalia/Thomas examples are in there because of, e.g., the "Scalito" nickname; that section isn't even trying to show Alito's non-conservatism, as those examples are cases where Alito (despite disagreeing with Scalia/Thomas) nonetheless voted conservatively.

As for his attitude toward precedent, perhaps "respectful" isn't an ideal word, but one does talk in legal circles about "respecting" precedent. Not everyone agrees that one ought to respect precedent, so saying that someone "respects" precedent isn't even an inherently complimentary statement. But how Alito feels about precedent is an important issue, and his Randall v. Sorrell concurrence is an important indicator about that.

The Hamdan vote has been corrected. Chaucer1387 14:47, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Alito is controversial in the least. It was the Alito nomination and the Senate hearings that were controverisal. User:Chaucer1387 has it right, that controversy is adequately covered in the Alito nomination article. Inserting that controvery here, it seems to me, would be inserting a POV into what is now a pretty good article. --Paul 19:42, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

You "don't think Alito is controversial in the least"??? Really?

The fact that a justice's nomination was highly controversial makes the justice's presence controversial, simple as that.

Chaucer1387, here's what I'd like to see:

  • There's nothing in this article at all that indicates how controversial his nomination was, and how controversial his presence on the court is, at least among democrats. In fact, I'd say that section is actively misleading and POV, since it (a) omits all discussion of this, (b) describes him as "well qualified" by the ABA, which implies that there is no controversy. The "confirmation hearings" section doesn't really clarify this. This article needs to clearly state how contentious the hearings were; not since Thomas has there been a similarly opposed nominee, or a more split vote.
  • I think there's far too much text devoted to Alito "not being like Scalia". A NPOV discussion would indicate how many cases Alita and Scalia have voted together vs. different, compared with Scalia and other candidates. There is no need to devote a large amount of text entirely to attempting to disprove something that statistically may well be completely true; this smacks of POV.
  • The section on "respectful attitude to precedent" should be deleted; certainly, one single case cannot determine this, and what Alito himself says can hardly be taken at face value. Past surveys have shown that Scalia is *least* respectful of precedent in terms of his willingness to vote against precedent, and the only NPOV way to show this one way or the other for Alito is with similar statistics.

Benwing 05:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

On your first point: The ABA bit is in the "nomination" section, where it belongs. As for the controversy of the nomination, maybe that's adequately covered in the "nomination" section, maybe not. I didn't even read the nomination section until just now, to find where the ABA fact was. I still haven't read the main article on "Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination," nor have I read the portion of this article about the confirmation hearings, as those sections hold little interest for me. That controversy stuff belongs there.

While Alito remains "controversial" in a sense, that's merely because he's a conservative and votes conservatively. The proper way to cover this is to show, using opinions and other available sources, (1) that he's a conservative, (2) to what extent he's a conservative, (3) and what kind of conservative he is. That's the theory behind the three subsections of the "U.S. Supreme Court career" section. First, show several cases where he voted conservatively. I've listed five (and I've just added a couple). Second, show where he hasn't voted with the conservatives. I've listed one that I'm aware of. Third -- and this goes to your third point -- show how he's differed from other conservatives. To that end, I've listed three cases where he's differed with Scalia or Thomas. This third part involves fewer cases than the first part, but it does take up more space on the page because these are harder-to-explain distinctions. (With the addition of cases in the first section, this third section should seem smaller by comparison. Also, I've further clarified that in one of those not-Scalia cases, it was Alito who was more conservative and Scalia who was voting with the liberals.)

Incidentally, the Harvard Law Review publishes a statistical analysis of the Supreme Court Term in their November issue each year. That's the standard source for numbers of the form "how often one Justice voted together with another." I look forward to reading it in November, and incorporating the relevant statistics then.

On your third point: Obviously, everyone cares what Alito thinks about precedent, because the elephant in the room is Roe v. Wade, and these days, debates about Roe are carried on by debating whether Roe is a firmly established precedent and whether such precedents should be respected purely for their precedential value. (The term "respected" here is a neutral term. It shouldn't be read as anything positive; I myself think respecting a precedent that you believe to be wrong is highly overrated. In any case, following a precedent is just called "respecting" it.) So far, he hasn't faced an abortion-like case, so there's nothing to say about that. The one hint he's given about his attitude toward precedent is that separate opinion in Randall v. Sorrell. So this is very important!

While of course it's better to have statistics, it's too early in his career to know this, and I think the word "hints" adequately hedges. But since I think it's the word "respectful" that mainly bugs you, I'll change "hints at Alito's respectful attitude toward precedent" to "may give some hint as to Alito's attitude toward folllowing precedent." It's the same thing. Chaucer1387 01:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

    • I concur with User Chaucer1387, his presence isn't controversial, it was his nomination process. If he does something controversial while in the court, like joining Scalia's and Thomas' originalism theories or voting to overturn some landmark ruling, then I think it would be appropiate to talk about controversiality. Maybe we should wait until next term, when the Court will deal with abortion in Gonzales v. Carhart and with affirmative action. If Alito takes some strong stance in those cases that may cause controversy, then we should insert it in the article.

User Benwing states that "Alito's presence in the court is controversial for democrats." IMHO, that's a Catch-22, because Breyer's and Ginsburg's presence in the court is equally controversial for Republicans. So by that argument, every Supreme Court Justice page will have to have some sort of "controversy" section.<<Coburn_Pharr>> 13:42, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Benwing, do this discussion and recent modifications alleviate your concerns? Might one remove the POV tag?--Chaucer1387 14:18, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Hi Chaucer1387, sorry for not getting back sooner. The section looks much better to me and I removed the tag. As for the "controversial" issue, ultimately, what I think I really wanted was somewhere that obviously announced Alito's controversial nomination, so I added a sentence about this in the intro. User:Coburnpharr04 is right that many or most justices are controversial; that's not surprising given the power invested in them, and I don't think a "controversy" section would be out of line in such cases, even if it applied to most of the justices. In this case, the obvious controversy, however, was about his nomination; neither Breyer's nor Ginsburg's nominations were especially controversial, and the confirmation votes were not along party lines. (Nor for that matter was the vote on Roberts.) Benwing 10:39, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
BTW Thank you for all the hard work put into this article! Thanks also for managing to remain NPOV on an issue where staying neutral is hard to do. Benwing 10:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Shorten nomination & confirmation section?

Speaking of the debate immediately above, I've taken a look at the nomination and confirmation sections of this article. First, I've merged them into one section, because the "Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination" article covers both the nomination and the confirmation hearings. I've also deleted the Wikinews item, since this is now 7 months old. Second -- and I won't do anything about this without input from you guys -- I suggest that the section be shortened a bit: If someone is interested in the unsuccessful filibuster attempt, the 72-25 cloture vote, or the identity of the senators voting against him, can't they look up the longer nomination article? Chaucer1387 01:19, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I think we should also shorten his supreme court career section. I don't find it too convinient to have an analysis of so many cases. He is the junior jsutice and yet his supreme court career section is the longest of any justice, except scalia.<<Coburn_Pharr>> 13:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Heh, well, I guess one can't make everyone happy. In my view, the Supreme Court career section should be the longest section, because he's actually a Supreme Court Justice now, and that's the really important thing that people should know about. (I do agree, though, that the section shouldn't keep expanding; as he stays on the Court. The section shouldn't be twice as long by the time his next half-Term is done; in fact, I think it should probably stay as long as it is now, with new important cases muscling out the old ones, or with cataloguing of cases making way for trends as they become apparent.) On the other hand, I think the nomination and confirmation section should be of little interest in the near future. To the extent it says anything about Alito, his voting record should substitute for it; and to the extent it says anything about party politics during the Bush presidency, that will be less interesting by the time we have a new president. Chaucer1387 13:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I understand your points. I guess this is just part of some of the unfairnes of wikipedia: recentism. Samuel Alito's Career section is the longest of many justices in the encyclopedia, including pillars like William Brennan and Harry Blackmun. Oh well. I agree, if it is to stay that long, we should be sure that only really important cases stay. For example, by the time he rules in his first, let's say, abortion case, that case alone will probably gather around four paragraphs in this article. <<Coburn_Pharr>> 16:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Just checked out Blackmun and Brennan. Blackmun's Supreme Court career section takes up about 2.5 screens for me, and Brennan's takes up about 1.75 screens for me. O'Connor's is almost 3. Scalia's is hard to say because there's no "Supreme Court career" section, but it's something more than 3. Kennedy's is more than 2.5. Breyer's is a bit over 1.5. Not much for Ginsburg, but I think that's a failing of the Ginsburg article. Alito's section clocks in at a bit over 2 screens, almost 2.5; I think that's appropriate, especially since people are more interested to know about Alito right now. I don't know about the "four paragraphs" business, but his first abortion case should certainly take up a decent amount of space, and if I'm still active on this page by then I'll make sure to keep the total length of this section about the same. Chaucer1387 18:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I started 2005 term United States Supreme Court opinions of Samuel Alito (and similar lists for all other present justices) so there is another place to go into a more detailed summary (aside from individual case articles) of his opinions, rather than trying to cram too much info in his biographical article. Please note the template I added at the bottom of this article has links to the as-yet unwritten lists for each year of his Third Circuit career as well, so those decisions can be documented too. Postdlf 00:48, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks great. I guess the parts that are mere opinion summary can be shortened or eliminated -- perhaps that whole Third Circuit summary section, once the Third Circuit opinions are up and running? On the other hand, if an opinion is used to make a substantive point about Alito's philosophy (e.g. to make an argument about what sort of conservative Alito is), I suppose it should stay in -- though the presence of a summary elsewhere might allow us to shorten those, perhaps a lot.--Chaucer1387 01:31, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't have any specific suggestions about this article, but your general recommendations make sense to me. Please drop me a note on my talk page if you start a new list for one of his Third Circuit years and I'll be happy to help with the formatting. Postdlf 16:19, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jewish?

There seems to be some that think that Mr. Alito is a Sephardi Jew, his family only converting to Catholicism recently. I've added a "source needed" badge for info on his heritage. Thank you. --172.128.32.189 09:52, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Designation as an Italian-American

I noticed in the first paragraph Justice Alito is labled as an Italian American Which is incorrect in two ways. Firstly His Honor was born in New Jersey so he is an American not an Italian Immigrant. Secondly the only persons who truly hold the title of Italian-Americans are those who hold dual citizenship, all others are either Americans or Italians. I believe this also applies to any such title, Afriacn-American for example.

“A man who thinks of himself as belonging to a particular national group has yet to become an American, and the man who goes among you to trade upon your nationality is not worthy to live under the Stars and Stripes.”

Woodrow Wilson May 1915

DarinBlack 01:08, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia page on Italian American (through redirects, this is the same as with a hyphen) says: "An Italian American is an American of Italian descent." This is also the way it's used in English, and by, say, the National Italian American Foundation quoted further down on the Alito page. The notion that the terms "American" and "Italian" track citizenship and are therefore exclusive except in cases of dual citizenship does not exhaust the meanings of "American" and "Italian" in the English language, nor does it even represent the primary meanings. The alternate notion that the terms "American" and "Italian" track birthplace is (1) in substantial tension with the previous notion, and (2) also does not exhaust the meanings of the terms in the English language.
The Wilson quote is, first, not on point, as it only says that a man who thinks of himself as belonging to an ethnic group isn't an American; I could assume for the sake of argument that this is true, and nonetheless believe that a man who does in fact belong to an ethnic group may still also be an American (as long as he doesn't think of himself that way). Second, the Wilson quote uses "American" in a normative, not a descriptive, sense. Third, to the extent the Wilson quote purports to use "American" in a descriptive sense, Wilson is not a particularly authoritative exponent of the English language, and in this case the quote is incorrect as to what it takes to not be an American. Chaucer1387 02:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
Wilson was also speaking many decades before the use of hyphenated ethnic self-identities became common in the U.S. and seen as a point of pride. Postdlf 02:10, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Intro: conservative nature

I am going to change the line "He is regarded as a generally conservative jurist." to "He is a conservative jurist, who since becoming a member of the Supreme Court has consistently voted with the conservative members of the court." I think the original sentence should be changed as his conservative nature has never been in question because it is agreed upon by both supporters and opponents. As he has had a conservative record since joining the court I think this sentence is appropriate. Wikipediatoperfection 06:08, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any justification for the assertion in the lead that he has a "libertarian streak"-- the word libertarian only is mentioned twice in the article, and being a member of a society that some libertarians are members of doesn't mean you have a "libertarian streak." Especially with being in the intro, this is going to need a cite. The ACLU opposed his nomination on grounds that he would give the government too much power; that's not really a libertarian point of view or the way a libertarian judge would rule.--76.182.88.254 07:49, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Re-considering 1st paragraph edit?

I don't understand the reasons for Sjrplscjnky's recent edit of this article -- not that I'm sure that the data are necessarily "wrong." Rather, I'm persuaded that the strategy of introducing academic honors in the first paragraph is an unhelpful approach to this specific subject. I note that articles about other sitting Justices have been similarly "enhanced;" and I also believe those changes are no improvement.

In support of my view that this edit should be reverted, I would invite anyone to re-visit articles written about the following pairs of jurists.

The question becomes: Would the current version of the Wikipedia article about any one of them -- or either pair -- be improved by academic credentials in the introductory paragraph? I think not.

Perhaps it helps to repeat a wry argument Kathleen Sullivan of Stanford Law makes when she suggests that some on the Harvard Law faculty wonder how Antonin Scalia avoided learning what others have managed to grasp about the processes of judging? I would hope this anecdote gently illustrates the point.

Less humorous, but an even stronger argument is the one Clarence Thomas makes when he mentions wanting to return his law degree to Yale.

At a minimum, I'm questioning this edit? It deserves to be reconsidered. --Ooperhoofd (talk) 00:50, 19 December 2007 (UTC)