Samuel Alito – January 9, 2006 – opening statement of his senate confirmation hearing ;
“A judge can’t have any agenda. A judge can’t have any preferred outcome
in any particular case. And a judge certainly doesn’t have a client.”
– June, 2022: “For decades, Alito Had a Goal to Overturn Roe” [Charlie Savage; New York Times}: in l985. Mr. Alito applied for another position in the Justice Department, citing his role in devising a strategy for those cases. “I personally believe very strongly,” he wrote in an application, that “the Constitution does not protect a right to abortion.”…how he slowly and patiently sought to chip away at abortion rights throughout his career before demolishing them in the majority opinion on Friday.”
Chief Justice John Roberts, from “Justice on the Brink” [Linda Greenhouse], page 4: “The loss of a reliable conservative majority would have doomed two projects which Roberts, with Scalia as a reliable ally, was making steady progress. One involved race, the other religion. Roberts’s long term plan was to change how the Constitution understood both, and now, with Donald Trump having filled the Scalia and Kennedy vacancies, he was in a position to achieve his goal.”
Amy Coney Barrett, 2017 essay in “Constitutional Commentary” journal:
“..the measure of a court is its fair-minded application of the rule of law,
which means going where the law leads. By this measure, it is illegiti-
mate for the court to distort either the Constitution or a statute to
achieve what it deems a preferable result.”
– September 26, 2020, at her introduction as Trump’s Supreme Court nominee:
A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policy-makers,
and they must be resolute in setting any policy views they might have.”
– “What was unusual was the public dimension to Barrett’s Catholicism..her willingness during her pre-judicial career to attest to her adherence to Catholic doctrine on matters of public concern, abortion prominently among them.” In 20l3, she signed a “pro-life” University Faculty for Life statement. In 2012, she signed a statement criticizing the Obama administration’s inclusion of contraception coverage in employer-sponsored health plans. She signed a 2015 letter of “fidelity to and gratitude for the doctrines of the Catholic church.” In 2016, she was part of a unanimous condemnation of Joe Biden getting the Laetare Medal. [Greenhouse; “Justice on the Brink”]
Clarence Thomas….”At the EEOC, he eased the pressure on corporations to comply with Court orders…ended use of class action suits…[AARP] accused Thomas of neglecting to stop discrimination against the elderly…Although Roe v. Wade was decided while Thomas was a law student..he knew one of the primary reasons for his appointment was his opposition to it, when asked..whether he had ever had a discussion of the Roe decision..”the answer to that is no, Senator..He denied to having an opinion on Roe “this day.” Long after the hearings, it came out he had extensive discussions about the case long before the hearing and stated flatly he was against it.” [Martin Garbus; “Courting Disaster”]
Brett Kavanaugh… “Kavanaugh repeatedly told the senators under grilling from Democrats and Republicans that the women’s right to an abortion has been affirmed…Yet during this week’s court hearing Kavanaugh read from a long list of court cases that have upturned past precedents and questioned why the court couldn’t now do the same with abortion.” [Lisa Mascaro; “Justices’ assurances on “Roe” now look doubtful”; 12/4/21; Assoc. Press]
Professor Erwin Chemerinsky: “The draft of Alito’s majority opinion overturning Roe..is right-wing Republican politics masquerading as law…Unless the court is going to repudiate all of the other privacy rights, it is impossible to deny that laws prohibiting abortion also intrude on a woman’s liberty.” [5/8/22; “Brazenly political court shows it will strike down abortion rights”]
Justice William Brennan: “I took an oath to obey and enforce the Constitution…therefore, when there is a conflict between a principle of my faith and the constitutional principle, I have to decide the case as the Constitution requires.”
Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: “It is a misfortune if a judge reads his conscious or unconscious sympathy with one side of the other prematurely into the law, and forgets that what seems to him to be first principles are believe3d by half his fellow men to be wrong.”
Amendment One: “Congress shall make no law respecting n establishment of religion…”
Justice Hugo Black: “Power corrupts, and unrestricted power will tempt Supreme Court justices just as history tells us it tempted other judges. For, unfortunately, judges have not been immune to the seductive influences of power, and given the absolute or near absolute power, judges may exercise it to bring changes that are inimical to freedom and good government.”
New Jersey Constitution, 1776, Article XVIII: “That no person shall ever..be deprived of the inestimable privilege of worshipping Almighty God in a manner agreeable to the dictates of his own conscience; nor, under any pretense whatsoever, be compelled to attend any place of worship, contrary to his own faith and judgment; nor shall any person..ever be obliged to pay tithes, taxes, or other rates, for the purpose of building or repairing any church or churches..or for the maintenance of any minister or ministry, contrary to what he believes to be right..” Article XIX: “that there be no establishment of any one religious sect..in preference to another.”
“The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies
with sincerity.” [Andre Gide]
With Justice For All 