Alito's position on reproductive rights is the BIG issue that will energize both the Democratic and Wingnut base. But how does he stand on other human rights issues? Republicans like Alito are known for their zeal in protecting the unborn, but how do they feel about protecting fully conscious human beings? Maybe someone else can comment on what we can expect from Alito in terms of capital punishment. Another lens with which to examine Alito's respect for human life is by examining his rulings on immigration. In the world of immigration law, asylum cases are often the equivalent of death penalty cases. I googled a few asylum decisions to see how he ruled. The results are interesting.
A man named Chang visited the United States in 1992 as part of an official Chinese delegation of engineers to a US industrial manufacturer. Chang was under instructions to prevent fellow delegates with sensitive information from defecting and remaining in the US. He refused to turn in a colleague who was going to defect. Chang met with an FBI agent, who told him that he was in danger, and should seek asylum in the US.
http://law.shu.edu/...
The immigration judge agreed that Chang would be prosecuted and punished if he returned to China, but said that for prosecution to be persecution, he must have been persecuted for political reasons. Since Chang had failed to prevent others from defecting, he was guilty of a crime under Chinese law, but he did not demonstrate that he had any particular political beliefs himself. His only belief was a general sense that it would be wrong to subject his colleagues to punishment for attempting to defect from China.
The immigration judge's ruling was odd, in that it flies in the face of many other successful asylum cases in which a person is granted asylum for imputed political opinion - i.e. that the Chinese government would have thought Chang was disloyal by his actions and persecuted him accordingly. Immigration judges make a lot of horrible rulings, and this one was promptly overturned by the Third US Circuit Court. In the majority ruling, Judge Roth correctly ruled that Chang's refusal itself constituted a political act, at least in the eyes of the Chinese government, and that he was entitled to withholding of removal, if not outright asylum.
Alito dissented, and he dissented in the most legalistic, narrow and rigid way possible. Alito held that Chang would have had to clearly and unambiguously express a political opinion in opposition to the Chinese government in order to meet the burden of proving well-founded fear of persecution based on political opinion. Presumably Chang should have written the Chinese embassy a letter stating "I explicitly disagree with your political agenda and hereby affirm that y'all suck", with a second copy sent by certified mail to immigration, in order to meet the test for political asylum.
Alito appears to believe that immigration judges should be allowed to deport people even if the IJ makes a factual error, unless "any adjudicator" in a similar position would disagree. Facts don't matter in life and death decisions, only an impossibly high standard that errors must be so profound that "any" adjudicator at all would object. Alito's temperment and views would certainly support laws that deny de novo review of immigration cases in federal court.
http://www.amren.com/...
"...In another, a judge dismissed a Sudanese immigrant's tale of being treated for an illness with herbal medicines by quipping, "That is not the case. All countries have hospitals and doctors," despite evidence that professional medical attention in rural Sudan is scarce...
"Judge Samuel Alito dissented, saying federal courts should resist the temptation to second-guess. Federal law, he said, only allows the decisions of immigration judges to be overturned in cases where "any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary."..."
Finally, Alito did rule in favor of an Iranian woman, who sought asylum based on her feminist political opinions. The case is not especially noteworthy though, because there is long precedent for granting such clear-cut cases based on gender-based persecution. Even for someone not known for a tight embrace of women's rights, precedent and law makes it very difficult to deny an asylum case to an Iranian feminist who can demonstrate a real risk of violent retribution in Iran. http://www.scotusblog.com/...
(Lest you think that Alito is a champion of immigrant rights based on this one ruling, please note that he did deny asylum in a similar case, Askari v Ashcroft, based on a narrow definition of "persecution" and deference to the immigration judge's decision.)
I have not been able to find any rulings by Alito on asylum cases for gay or lesbian petitioners, except for one case denying an appeal for a gay Venezuelan man based on ineffective assistance of counsel. It would be interesting to see if he is as open to asylum for a gay Iranian man as he is for an Iranian feminist.
Here's what asylum seekers can expect from a Justice Alito: Erosion of the role of the federal judiciary in oversight of immigration law and policy; deference to immigration judge decisions, even when they are batshit crazy and rulings are based on factual error; restrictive and narrow determinations of "protected classes"; and probably a great deal of deference to the executive branch in deportation of "terrorism" suspects without due process or adequate review.
Who knows how he feels about the use of torture, or the applicability of international law, such as the Convention Against Torture. We shall all have to stay tuned.