Comments | commandercranky: Specter honing in on Alito

commandercranky

Specter honing in on Alito

Dec 14, 2005 13:18

Although there has been a lot of coverage of Alito's anti-abortion record, not a lot of people are talking about his record on the other side of privacy rights - criminal procedure. To be sure, his opinion that strip-searching a child because her father was suspected of selling drugs has garnered media attention. But apart from a good piece by ( Read more... )

alito, cops, habeas, specter

Comments 12

planetdracula December 14 2005, 19:12:11 UTC

Yeah, the feeling I've gotten from Specter over the past couple of years is that, while he's not willing to buck his own estalishment - that is, since he's loyal - he doesn't care for the graceless direction his party's since the Gingrich Congress. He's the sort of Republican with whom one can disagree cheerfully.

commandercranky December 15 2005, 03:34:03 UTC

Yeah, he's an asshole, but he's an asshole you can at least have a little patience with since he manages to get things right every once in a while.

rootlesscosmo December 14 2005, 19:59:38 UTC

I was among a group of demonstrators Specter prosecuted in 1967! The law we were arrested for violating was an obviously Constitution-shredding relic of the pre-Civil War era which the Democratic Mayor had invoked in a pre-election effort to look tough on Black rioters; we challenged it and, predictably, prevailed. (Civil liberties lawyers were knocking each other down for a chance to represent us since our case was such a high-profile slam-dunk.) Specter was the GOP candidate in the mayoral election and the whole thing turned into a giant recrimination-fest, with the Mayor claiming Specter had rolled over in our case and Specter accusing the Mayor of ineptness for invoking that law in the first place. Good fun for all.

also... rootlesscosmo December 14 2005, 20:05:07 UTC

Agent absolved in killing  Narcotics officer said he thought victim was armed

commandercranky December 15 2005, 03:26:45 UTC

Weird - I forgot you have a philly connection. I bet you had to beat off Kairys/Rudovsky with a stick!

Who was the Mayor at the time? Rizzo? No - it would have been before him...

rootlesscosmo December 15 2005, 03:33:47 UTC

I don't know those names... we were represented by Bernie Siegel (who later tauught at Peg's law school here in SF, Golden Gate), a guy named Butterfield, and a batch of others. The Mayor at the time was a Democratic hack named James H.J. Tate; Rizzo was Police Chief (he showed up in court one day, regaling the press with demonstrations of how he liked to use his size 13 shoes on arrestees' heads) and a guy named Lt. Donald Fencl was head of the Red Squad.

Thread 5

i_am_electro December 14 2005, 20:19:26 UTC

I've been very interested in his stance on one person, one vote issues.

commandercranky December 15 2005, 03:33:11 UTC

Yeah, and his fuckin' sob story about his pops and his goddam manual calculator.

raccoonpower December 14 2005, 21:25:57 UTC

show us the fully serious legal nerdery?

commandercranky December 15 2005, 03:32:45 UTC

Oh man, you don't want to know.

Okay - I'll work on finding a good example.

raccoonpower December 15 2005, 23:24:25 UTC

sweeeeeet. bring. it. on.