So concludes the NYT: Bush’s Conservative Judge Harbors Libertarian Streak
“Judge Alito is part of the new breed of conservative libertarian jurists who are sensitive to safeguarding our free-speech freedoms,” said Ronald K. L. Collins, a scholar at the First Amendment Center, a research and advocacy group in Virginia. “They’re particularly sensitive when it comes to issues involving speech and commerce and political orthodoxy.”These judges tend to be very protective of speech rights when they involve the marketplace of ideas, or the core of the First Amendment, said Jesse H. Choper, a constitutional law professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Among the generally conservative judges who share Judge Alito’s approach to free expression are Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and Judge Alex Kozinski on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco. Justice Antonin Scalia may also be considered in this group; his vote was critical in a 1989 case holding that burning the American flag was a form of protected political speech.
Sounds good to me.
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November 13th, 2005 at 1:55 am
It’s alot harder to exercise free speech rights like flag-burning when you’re locked-up. This litigant got a taste of Alito’s “libertarian” streak:
Beatty Chadwick has been in jail in for over TEN YEARS on a divorce case. Where? In China, Iran, or a secret gulag in Siberia? No, he’s in a Pennsylvania County Jail.
He was never charged with any crime. Judge Alito wrote the 3rd Circuit decision affirming his civil incarceration. Chadwick’s ex-wife said he hid marital assets off-shore. A county court judge ordered Chadwick jailed until he returns his life’s earnings to the court as community property funds. Chadwick maintains he can’t comply with the court’s order. His ex says he can. Since no trial was ever conducted on the facts of this case, this man is being held on a combination of “he says/she says affidavits,” local gossip, and a whole lot of otherwise legally inadmissible hearsay. Bottom line: he’s been railroaded by the local judges in the town of Media, Pennsylvania.
Chadwick’s attorneys have argued that 10 years in a county jail, absent criminal charges and a jury verdict is excessive and that he should be released because he’s already given his “pound of flesh.”
After seven years, the case went to a US district court judge (Norma Shapiro, Eastern District, PA) on a writ of habeas corpus. Shapiro ordered Chadwick released. A stay was granted to Jean Crowther Chadwick so she could appeal to the Third Circuit.
Judge Alito wrote the decision overturning Judge Shapiro’s findings. Alito wrote an opinion upholding the right of the state to keep a debtor in jail for an “indefinite period of time…” even for life. It was obvious that if after all those years Chadwick didn’t comply, then he wouldn’t or couldn’t. It was also likely under that ruling that Chadwick might do life “for divorce,” and at the age of 68 (battling leukemia) he could well die in jail.
Bypassing all the due process violations Chadwick raised, Alito based the court’s decision on a footnote to an obscure labor union case and decided to keep Chadwick imprisoned. In effect, Alito ruled against the fundamental rights our Constitution mandates: basics like a trial, jury, and a punishment that fits the “crime.” Instead, Alito chose to hold a dying debtor another three plus years and still running.
Our Constitution is a what we as Americans live by and under. Although judges sometimes stretch and mold its words to fit the case and the times, from a fair reading of the document it seems debtor’s prisons were abolished at the First Constitutional Convention. That too is the law, as much as the order in the Chadwick divorce case. The draconian punishment inflicted on this civil detainee in the guise of “strict constructionism” creates the likelihood of a never-ending nightmare for any arrestee whether under the Patriot Act or a divorce decree.
There is no doubt that Alito, the judge, is a craftsman with the law. But the Chadwick decision gives us an opportunity to peek into the soul of Alito, the man. It appears that when it comes to civil rights, individual freedom, and constitutional intent he just doesn’t see the forest for the trees… Alito could be the swing vote on our highest court for a good part of this century. There will be no appeals and there the buck will stop. Can we afford to squander our hard-earned freedom by putting our trust in a judge who uses one standard to measure his own compliance with the law and another for the rest us? Ask Beatty.
November 13th, 2005 at 7:18 am
Samuel Alito on the first ammendment
The NY Times had an article yesterday on Samuel Alito and his libertarian views in regards to the first ammendment. I am a strong first ammendment believer. Some political views are unpopular but people have a right to them and I believe strongly in …