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# Samuel Alito Weblog

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Abortion

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Alito, Samuel A. Jr.

Yale Law School, J.D., 1975

Professional Career:
Law clerk, Hon. Leonard I. Garth, U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, 1976-1977
Assistant U.S. attorney, District of New Jersey, 1977-1981
Assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, 1981-1985
Deputy assistant U.S. attorney general, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, 1985-1987
U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey, 1987-1990

Federal Judicial Service:
U. S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
Nominated by George H.W. Bush on February 20, 1990, to a seat vacated by John Joseph Gibbons; Confirmed by the Senate on April 27, 1990, and received commission on April 30, 1990.

20070727
• John Roberts - Samuel Alito - Justice - New York - "Democrat charges U.S. justices "duped" Senate." ... "U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts and Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito "duped" the U.S. Senate into confirming them, a top Democratic lawmaker [New York Senator Charles Schumer] charged on Friday, days after a key Republican questioned if they had lived up to their promises." -By Thomas Ferraro -Reuters via -Yahoo 

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20070621
• John G Roberts - Samuel A Alito - Politics - History - Abortion - Nebraska - "Precedents Begin to Fall for Roberts Court." ... "No Supreme Court nominee could be confirmed these days without paying homage to the judicial doctrine of “stare decisis,” Latin for “to stand by things decided.” Yet experienced listeners have learned to take these professions of devotion to precedent “cum grano salis,” Latin for “with a grain of salt.”" ... "Both Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. assured their Senate questioners at their confirmation hearings that they, too, respected precedent. So why were they on the majority side of a 5-to-4 decision last week declaring that a 45-year-old doctrine excusing people whose “unique circumstances” prevented them from meeting court filing deadlines was now “illegitimate”?" ... "It was the second time the Roberts court had overturned a precedent, and the first in a decision with a divided vote. It surely will not be the last." ... "So the question is not whether the Roberts court will overturn more precedents, but how often, by what standard and in what terms." ... "Sometimes the court overrules cases without actually saying so. Some argue that this is what happened in April, when a 5-to-4 majority upheld the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act without making much effort to reconcile that ruling with a decision in 2000 that found a nearly identical Nebraska law unconstitutional." -By Linda Greenhouse -NYTimes 

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20070529
• Worker - Women - Race - Alabama - Business - Alito - Roberts - Scalia - Kennedy - "Worker Job-Bias Claims Limited by U.S. Supreme Court (Update4)." ... "Workers can't sue under a federal job- bias law to claim they are underpaid because of gender or race discrimination that occurred years earlier, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a victory for employers." ... "The justices, voting 5-4, rejected a $360,000 award to Lilly Ledbetter, an Alabama Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. worker who said that almost two decades of discrimination meant her salary was 15 to 40 percent lower than what her male counterparts earned." ... "The 1964 Civil Rights Act typically gives workers 180 days from the time of the alleged discrimination to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The question was whether workers can claim that their most recent paychecks are affected by bias that took place outside the 180-day window." ... "``Current effects alone cannot breathe life into prior, uncharged discrimination,'' Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority. ``Ledbetter should have filed an EEOC charge within 180 days after each allegedly discriminatory pay decision was made and communicated to her.''" ... "Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy and Clarence Thomas joined Alito's opinion. Lower courts were divided on the issue." ... "Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the court's only woman, took the unusual step of reading a summary of her dissent from the bench as she sat next to Alito. She said the majority ``does not comprehend, or is indifferent to, the insidious way in which women can be victims of pay discrimination.'' " -By Greg Stohr -Bloomberg 

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20070418
• Women's - Health - Science - Abortion - Politics - Roberts - Alito - Kennedy - Scalia - "`Partial Birth' Abortion Ban Upheld by Top U.S. Court (Update2)." ... "A divided U.S. Supreme Court upheld a nationwide ban on ``partial birth'' abortion, marking a shift on the issue and underscoring the impact of President George W. Bush's two high court appointments." ... "The justices, voting 5-4, said the 2003 law is constitutional even though there is no exception for cases posing a risk to the mother's health. The court also rejected claims that the Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act is so vaguely worded it would force doctors to forgo a commonly used, constitutionally protected abortion technique for fear of prosecution." ... "Bush's appointees, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, helped turn the tide in today's case, joining Kennedy and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas." ... "In dissent, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the ruling ``alarming'' and took the unusual step of reading a summary of her opinion from the bench. She pointed to the conclusion of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that the disputed procedure was proper in some cases." ... "``And, for the first time since Roe, the court blesses a prohibition with no exception safeguarding a woman's health,'' Ginsburg wrote. Justices Stephen Breyer, John Paul Stevens and David Souter joined Ginsburg's dissent." -By Greg Stohr -Bloomberg 

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20060615
• Noteworthy - Government - Police - Civil Righs - Politics - Samuel Alito - Sandra Day O'Connor - Homes - "Police don't have to knock, justices say: Alito's vote breaks 4-4 tie in police search case." ... "The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that police armed with a warrant can barge into homes and seize evidence even if they don't knock, a huge government victory that was decided by President Bush's new justices." ... "The 5-4 ruling clearly signals the court's conservative shift following the departure of moderate Sandra Day O'Connor." ... "The case tested previous court rulings that police armed with warrants generally must knock and announce themselves or they run afoul of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches." -AP via -CNN

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• Police - History - Civil Righs - Politics - Samuel Alito - Antonin Scalia - John Roberts - Homes- "Court Limits Protection Against Improper Entry." ... "Evidence found by police officers who enter a home to execute a search warrant without first following the requirement to "knock and announce" can be used at trial despite that constitutional violation, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday." ... "The 5-to-4 decision left uncertain the value of the "knock-and-announce" rule, which dates to 13th-century England as protection against illegal entry by the police into private homes." ... "Justice Antonin Scalia, in the majority opinion, said that people subject to an improper police entry remained free to go to court and bring a civil rights suit against the police." ... "But Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the dissenters, said the ruling "weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection." He said the majority's reasoning boiled down to: "The requirement is fine, indeed, a serious matter, just don't enforce it."" ... "In addition to Justice Alito, those who joined the majority opinion by Justice Scalia were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas and Anthony M. Kennedy. Justice Breyer's dissenting opinion was joined by Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg" -By Linda Greenhouse -NYTimes 

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20060530
• Government - Employees - Law - Los Angeles - California - Samuel Alito - John Roberts - Antonin Scalia - "Justices Set Limits on Public Employees' Speech Rights." ... "The Supreme Court declared today, in a ruling affecting millions of government employees, that the Constitution does not always protect their free-speech rights for what they say on the job." ... "In a 5-to-4 decision, the court held that public employees' free-speech rights are protected when they speak out as citizens on matters of public concern, but not when they speak out in the course of their official duties." ... "Today's ruling, involving a deputy Los Angeles [California] district attorney who contended that he had been denied a promotion for challenging the legitimacy of a search warrant, came in a case that has been closely watched not just by public workers but by those who have worried that it could discourage internal whistle-blowers from speaking up about government misconduct and inefficiency." ... ""We hold that when public employees make statements pursuant to their official duties, the employees are not speaking as citizens for First Amendment purposes, and the Constitution does not insulate their communications from employer discipline," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the court." ... "The court's newest justice, Samuel A. Alito Jr., was in the majority as were Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas." -By David Stout -NYTimes 

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• Search Case via Google: <Garcetti v. Ceballos, No. 04-473>

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