Here’s one example of a Scalito ruling that gives you a taste of how he’ll rule when he’s on the Supreme Court. In Doe v. Groody (PDF file), police officers requested a warrant to search the house of a suspected drug dealer and “all occupants therein.” The warrant issued by the judge, however, only authorized the search of the suspect specifically and no one else.

When the police served the warrant, they found the suspect’s wife and ten-year-old daughter on the premises. From what I gather of the reports, no drugs were found on the suspect nor in the premises. The police therefore decided to strip-search the mother and ten-year-old daughter, who were taken upstairs after a female officer arrived, were told to remove clothing, and were searched. Nothing was found.

While the two other judges on the 3rd Circuit court ruled in favor of the defendants, Alito dissented, saying that the “best reading of the warrant is that it authorized the search of any persons found on the premises.” Alito reached out to a decision that ruled warrants as documents drafted by “nonlawyers” in the “haste” of an investigation. However, he did not demonstrate that this particular warrant was drafted by a “nonlawyer” or that there was any “haste” involved. Nevertheless, Alito judged that the “commonsense and realistic” reading of the warrant included all occupants of the residence.

But here’s the sticking point: the police had asked for a warrant including “all occupants,” but the judge who issued the warrant specified only the suspect. There’s no getting around that, no matter how you work the situation. But Alito is suggesting that the warrant should be read not by the letter of its wording, but rather by what the police would consider reasonable assuming that the judge was inexperienced and rushed and probably left out something.

Leave aside, then, the idea of your ten-year-old being strip-searched by police without a warrant. Consider the far more terrifying scope of police abuse should it ever become legal for police to interpret warrants in such broad terms. Hell, why have warrants at all, if police are allowed to re-interpret them in such a way?

On abortion, it is suggested out that 3 of 4 of Alito’s decisions “supported” reproductive rights; however, none of these cases suggests an affinity for Roe v. Wade. One such “supportive” case followed a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, and Alito wrote that the reason for striking down an anti-“partial birth abortion” statute should be limited more strictly–essentially, arguing the case in the most conservative terms. Another decision would have required ruling a fetus as a human being with full legal rights, which would be ground-breaking and very difficult to legally support, making it hard to call this one “supportive” of reproductive rights as well. The third case would have required a rape-or-incest victim to report the abortion to police and identify the assailant, which is less a matter of reproductive rights than it is of victim’s rights.

The remaining case, Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, where the 3rd Circuit Court ruled legal all but one of a set of abortion prohibitions that would have struck a major blow to Roe v. Wade, and was eventually challenged by the Supreme Court. Alito, while agreeing with the large part of the majority decision in the 3rd Circuit, dissented in that he would have upheld all the prohibitions. A Supreme Court minority opinion, including Rehnquist, Thomas, and Scalia, who cited Alito’s opinion. Casey was significant because it upheld Roe by a razor-thin margin. Alito on the court would swing it solidly to the anti-Roe side, and you can bet that pro-life groups would race like the devil to get a Roe-killer case before the Supremes if Alito is confirmed.

And if you’re wondering if maybe he’s really not against abortion rights, keep in mind that his mother, Rose Alito, said, “Of course he’s against abortion.”

Among Alito’s other opinions:

• Decided that Congress could not ban sub-machine guns (he used the Commerce Clause, not the 2nd Amendment, as rationale);
• Ruled to allow a proselytizing evangelical group to distribute fliers and other material in elementary schools, on the grounds that the Boy Scouts and the PTA were allowed the same rights;
• Ruled that states could deny employees medical leave;
• Ruled against a college anti-harrassment policy challenged by an anti-homosexuality group;
• Dissented in favor of making it more difficult to file sexual or racial discrimination suits;
• Decided that people with mental disabilities could be discriminated against in welfare benefits plans, and has ruled in several cases against disability claims;
• Ruled in dissent to deport to China a Chinese official who requested asylum after he met with the FBI and failed to report to the Chinese government on possible defections by other Chinese; Alito has similarly been hostile to other immigration claims;
• Ruled against a man who was given inadequate counsel in capital punishment case, a decision which was later overturned by the Supreme Court.

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Furthermore, Alito’s decisions have been reversed or disagreed with by the Supreme Court a large number of times, and there is good reason that he will be quite the activist judge, right in line with the rest of the conservative justices. And don’t pay attention to those who paint him as moderate because he is “soft-spoken” and “mild-mannered”–just because he doesn’t rant and rave like Scalia doesn’t mean he won’t vote just like Scalia.