Sweeto Alito

Now that the Democrats have lived up to all expectations on the filibuster, it might be good to review the kind of judical opinion that we can expect from the soon-to-be new Supreme Court justice.

Against all normative judicial opinion, Alito rendered a glimpse of his temperment in a memo regarding the shooting death of a teenager who was fleeing from police. The teen had apparently stolen $10 in a home burglary and when the cops arrived, he bolted. The police shot the perp in the back as he ran away. Deadly force, usually advocated in life and death situations, appeared to be a rather extreme measure in this situation.

However, Alito opined,

I think the shooting can be justified as reasonable.

The Supreme Court later smacked down that judgement, stating that the shooting was clearly an "unreasonable seizure" and further would claim that the ruling was meant to "set a firm national rule against the routine use of ‘deadly force’ against fleeing suspects who pose no danger."

As they say, rules are meant to be broken. In Samuel Alito's vision for the country, any and all police action is reasonable and Alito will be one jurist who will no doubt advocate chipping away at those unnecessarily restrictive rules on the state's employment of deadly force in controlling its unruly population.