Footnotes:

All of the above "commandments" have been advocated in some manner or form by Judge Samuel J. Alito -- as a Justice Department applicant, government official or sitting judge. While at present, much of what he has advocated has of yet failed in the courts, Alito on the Supreme Court will open the door that his views will become the new standard for law in the United States.

1.Alito explained in a 1985 job application to the Justice Department that he believed "very strongly" that "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion" and that he was "proud" to help advance that position in the Justice Department. His efforts included a proposed strategy that aimed for the "eventual overturning of Roe v. Wade (1973), and in the meantime, of mitigating its effects."

2.Alito upheld a Pennsylvania law requiring a women in certain circumstance to notify her husband before obtaining an abortion. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992).

3.In a 1984 memo Alito authored as an assistant Solicitor General in the Justice Department, he maintained that it was constitutional for a Tennessee police officer to shoot in the back and kill an unarmed 15 year old boy suspected of stealing $10 worth of money and jewelry. Alito wrote, "societal order would quickly break down" if suspects could force officers to choose between killing them and letting them go. The Supreme Court unanimously ruled against the Tennessee law authorizing the shooting. ( Tennessee v. Garner 1985)

4. In a brief opposing an affirmative action plan, Alito obscenely equated affirmative action with slavery, claiming it could teach students "that one hundred and twenty years after the end of slavery government may still advance some and suppress others not as individuals but because of the color of their skin." On the bench, in another case, Alito tried to keep a worker's claim of race discrimination from being heard by the jury. ( Bray v. Marriott Hotel 1997)

Most revealing, in what amounts to using the KKK for a job reference, Alito prominently highlighted his membership in "Concerned Alumni of Princeton" in a 1985 application for a Justice Department promotion. The organization was created in 1972 to protect the then white male character of the Princeton student body. An essay entitled "In Defense of Elitism" in the November 1983 issue of the group's publication, Prospect, began "People nowadays just don't seem to know their place. Everywhere one turns blacks and hispanics are demanding jobs simply because they're black and hispanic, the physically handicapped are trying to gain equal representation in professional sports, and homosexuals are demanding that government vouchsafe them the right to bear children." Alito now reportedly fails to remember anything about his membership in CAP.

5.In his 1985 Justice Department application, Alito stated that while in college, "I developed a deep interest in constitutional law, motivated in large part by disagreement with Warren Court decisions, particularly in the areas of criminal procedure, the Establishment Clause, and reapportionment." Two central Warren Court rulings on criminal procure established the "right to remain silent" when questioned by police (Miranda), and the "right to an attorney" even when you can not afford one (Gideon).

6.Alito disagreed when seven judges tossed out a criminal verdict because of racial discrimination during jury selection, by a prosecutor who had struck all potential Black jurors from other death penalty trials occurring in the jurisdiction that year. The majority opinion said Alito's reasons "minimized the history of discrimination against prospective black jurors and black defendants." That came in response to Alito's trivializing discrimination by comparing the statistical evidence concerning Black jurors to the number of left-handed U.S. presidents, a statement that in essence dismissed the " Batson " ruling that made discrimination in jury selection illegal. ( Riley v Taylor 2001)

7.Alito upheld the denial of asylum to a member of a Guinean political opposition group who's father was murdered by the Guinean military, his home burned to ground and wife beaten and raped - saying there wasn't enough evidence to "second guess" the immigration department's ruling. ( Dia v Ashcroft 2003) In another case, an Iranian woman gave a number of examples of the consequences women face for non-compliance with Iranian gender-specific laws -- imprisonment if caught in public without the traditional Islamic veil, the routine penalty of 74 lashes, as well as rape or death. Alito denied the Iranian woman's asylum claim, stating that she failed to show how compliance with Iran's laws and social norms would be "tantamount to persecution" or that she would refuse to conform even if the consequences were severe. ( Fatin v. INS 1993)

8. Alito stated opposition to the Warren Court (see #5) including the ruling that struck down what the court saw as coercive prayer in school (Establishment Clause). On the bench, Judge Alito argued that a public school board could get around an earlier Supreme Court ruling, which barred school-approved, clergy-led prayers at graduation ceremonies, by allowing students to approve student-led prayers at graduation ceremonies, a position later ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. ( ACLU of New Jersey v. Black Horse Pike Regional Board of Education 1996)

In another ruling, Alito held that a school board's anti-harassment policy restricted the free speech rights of Christian students to speak out against homosexuality. ( Saxe v. State College Area School District 1999) Alito also ruled against local school officials, who had refused to permit representatives of Child Evangelism to hand out materials and staff a table at back-to-school nights and other events on school grounds because that would violate the Establishment Clause. The group describes itself as a

"'Bible-centered, worldwide organization composed of born-again believers whose purpose is to evangelize boys and girls with the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and to establish (disciple) them in the Word of God and in a local church for Christian living.'" ( Child Evangelism Fellowship of New Jersey, Inc. v. Stafford Township School District 2004)

9.In a dissenting opinion, Alito upheld the strip search of a mother and her 10 year old daughter. Neither were suspects or named in the search warrant. ( Doe v Groody 2004) Alito also voted, in another case, to prevent a jury from hearing evidence that a police supervisor illegally allowed his officers to handcuff and search a woman and her teenage children at gunpoint. They had simply walked up to her oldest son's home, which was being raided by police. ( Baker v. Monroe Township 1995)

10.Alito's opposition to the Warren Court's "reapportionment" decision puts him in opposition to decisions in 1962 and 1964 that ruled against the practice where Congressional and Senate districts were fixed so that small numbers of mainly conservative, often rural white voters had their own districts, while much larger numbers of people (usually in urban areas) were crammed into other districts - essentially giving people in these conservative, rural districts more votes per person. These rigged, white-get-more-votes congressional districts were part of denying Black people the right to vote. On the bench, Alito has ruled against minority voters who claimed that a Delaware school board voting plan illegally diluted their voting strength. ( Jenkins v. Manning 1994)

11.While at the justice department, Alito agreed that Executive Branch officials should be absolutely immune from claims concerning illegal domestic wiretapping. While in the Solicitor General's office, Alito argued (unsuccessfully at the time) in a Supreme Court brief that Cabinet officials who authorized illegal wiretaps to gather intelligence about "possible terrorist activities" were entitled to absolute immunity from any legal liability. ( Mitchell v Forsyth, 472 U.S 5111985)

12. In 1986, then Deputy Assistant Attorney General Alito helped draft the Office of Legal Counsel's "Cooper Opinion," which concluded that the prohibition against discrimination against persons with disabilities in any federally funded program did NOT apply to people with AIDS. They could be excluded and fired because of an employer's "fear of contagion whether reasonable or not"

13.Alito threw out a verdict and $300,000 judgement against prison guards who viciously beat inmate Raymond Pryer, breaking his leg in two places, breaking both hands, splitting his lips, swelling his eye, leaving welts on his face and bruises over his entire body and causing him to urinate blood. ( Pryer v C.O. 3.Slavic 2001)

14.Alito upheld judgement for the company in an age-discrimination suit brought by a former executive who was first denied a promotion and then later fired by a company president who openly asked the executive "if you are getting too old for the job." ( Keller v. ORIX Credit Alliance 1997)