Criminal appeals

Reluctance to side with convicts

Alito’s record also suggests that the former U.S. attorney in New Jersey seldom strays far from his prosecutorial roots and remains reluctant to side with criminal defendants. His tough views on crime and punishment are likely to cement the Supreme Court’s rightward movement in that area, especially when it comes to evaluating complex federal sentencing laws and ongoing efforts by Congress to write new criminal laws.

In 60 criminal appeals that resulted in published decisions in which he wrote a majority, dissenting or concurring opinion, Alito sided with a defendant’s key argument in 12 cases, most of the time sending a case back to a lower court for a new sentencing.

Alito voted to overturn two convictions in those cases, excluding appeals where he left a central conviction intact but set aside other offenses.

But from police searches to the death penalty, Alito rarely has been persuaded to overturn a conviction or sentence.

His view of habeas corpus rights — the chief legal window through which a death row inmate seeks a reprieve — has been particularly restrictive. Because the death penalty is one of the high court’s most active areas of criminal review and because O’Connor has been the swing vote in many capital cases, Alito’s confirmation could mean a dramatic change.