Strip Search Sammy discovers civil libertarianism [offer void for non-MAGA defendants]

Sam Alito has the most reactionary record on civil liberties of any justice nominated since World War II, This makes his recent suggestions at oral argument that it is constitutionally unacceptable for prosecutors to be able to enforce the law as written against defendants Alito likes all the more striking:

Over the years, Alito has voted in favor of criminal defendants just 20% of the time, according to Epstein. In some cases in which even other conservatives sided with defendants, Alito was on the other side.

One such case was a 2009 ruling authored by staunch conservative Justice Antonin Scalia that said defendants have a right to question lab technicians who analyze evidence the prosecution hopes to rely on at trial.

In another 2009 case, Alito dissented when the court ruled that police cannot search a vehicle without a warrant after an arrest is made.

Four years later, Alito was in the majority and Scalia in dissent when the court ruled that states can conduct DNA testing during arrests without requiring a warrant.

Alito struck a much more defendant-friendly tone in the recent oral arguments.

In one, Alito was among several justices who questioned the Justice Department’s use of an obstruction statute to prosecute people involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He suggested that if the court allows it to apply to Jan. 6 defendants, prosecutors could also seek to use it against people involved in peaceful demonstrations, such as those that take place in the courtroom from time to time.

In another case on a federal ban on gun accessories called “bump stocks” that allow a semiautomatic rifle to file more quickly, Alito said it would be “disturbing” for people to be prosecuted for owning them when lower courts have questioned the ban’s lawfulness, even if the Supreme Court ultimately upholds it.

Alito also appeared concerned in a separate gun case about the due process rights of gun owners who face having to give up their firearms, and risk prosecution if they don’t, when accused of domestic violence.

What would happen, he asked, if people under domestic violence protective orders are themselves under threat?

“So the person thinks that he or she is in danger and wants to have a firearm. Is the person’s only recourse to possess the firearm and take their chances if they get prosecuted?” he asked.

At one point, he even cited a friend-of-the-court brief filed by lawyers in California who represent criminal defendants.

[…]

In 2017, Siegel wrote an article in which he called Alito “the primary judicial voice of the many millions of Americans who appear to be losing the culture war.”

Now, he puts it slightly differently, saying Alito is “the most MAGA Republican justice — and that is a horrible, horrible thing to say about any jurist.”

–“[Alito] will try as hard as anyone — and far harder than O’Connor — to be intellectually honest and analytically rigorous, and to keep his political preferences out of his legal rulings” —eventheliberal Stuart Taylor, who was I swear actually paid good money to offer his “expertise” about the Supreme Court for many years. And I wish he could say he was the only one who lied to the public about Alito.