Word: alito
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...decided to shift the office's priorities, going after fewer small drug deals and focusing more on public corruption and Mob cases. "We both agreed we should avoid a lot of rinky-dink cases," Chertoff, who is now the U.S. Homeland Security Secretary, told TIME. The result was that Alito prosecuted far fewer drug cases than his predecessor had but also won some major cases, including several convictions of members of the Genovese crime family who had sought to kill Gambino Mob boss John Gotti...
Democrats looking at Alito today are worried that his tenure as a prosecutor has affected his track record as an appeals court judge, a position in which he has overwhelmingly favored police and the government in criminal cases. He defended the strip search of a 10-year-old girl, saying drug dealers sometimes use children to help with their crimes. He ruled that evidence obtained by the FBI while monitoring a suspect for several months in his hotel suite without a warrant was permissible because police turned on video cameras only when an informant who was cooperating with officers entered...
...After Alito's three years as U.S. Attorney, President George H.W. Bush tapped him to be an appeals court judge in Newark, a position he has held for 15 years. When Alito was first nominated, it was expected that Democrats would attack him for his opinions as a judge, particularly a 1991 dissenting opinion in which he defended a Pennsylvania law that said a woman must notify her husband before she has an abortion. Democrats also seized on Alito's record of ruling against employees who allege gender or racial discrimination. They were alarmed too by the 1985 Justice Department...
...following revelations that Bush has allowed the secret surveillance of Americans without warrants, Democrats have shifted their concern to Alito's robust defense of Executive power. In a 2000 speech, for instance, Alito argued that the framers viewed the Executive Branch of government "as necessary to balance the huge power of the legislature and the factions that may gain control over it." Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy has said he would question Alito about a 1984 memo in which he argued the Attorney General should be immune from lawsuits even if he authorized illegal domestic wiretapping...
Many Democrats say that while Alito may be mild mannered, his views reflect a conservative activist befitting the "Scalito" moniker that liberals have given him in order to tie him to Supreme Court firebrand Antonin Scalia. White House aides want Alito prepared for a barrage of hostile queries, so he continued last week with practice sessions in a Justice Department conference room and a White House auditorium. Former Solicitor General Ted Olson stopped in to fire questions aimed at sharpening the nominee for surprises. White House officials believe Alito's understatement will play well in such a heated atmosphere. Asked...