POLS 4720 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Samuel Alito, Judicial Activism, Originalism
5 May 2018
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Ideology is not the only factor that affects a justice’s decision in a case. If this were true, there
would be no shocking cases, nor any reason to take so much time deciding a Supreme Court
case. However, the difference between judicial textualism and originalism must be mentioned.
Given records, Justice Alito seems to be a judicial activist, meaning he does not look at the text
of the Constitution as much as he looks at the meaning of the law and each situation surrounding
it (Moore). Prior to Justice Alito’s appointment, there were not many signs on where Justice
Alito would stand with this issue, but it has become clear that Justice Alito is an originalist when
it comes to interpreting the Constitution (Rosen). When looking at the Fernandez v. California
case in these terms, we can easily look to Justice Alito’s previous Fourth Amendment decisions
and see that he values protections on the rights afforded by the Constitution in a manner that
does not unduly burden the ease of justice afforded by law enforcement. He uses the approach
that as long as there is not a blatant disregard for an individual’s rights, the police have a wide
range of discretion and abilities when carrying out the process of law enforcement. This
information also strengthens the argument that allowing an absent individual’s objection to
override a physically present person’s consent to a search of a shared home will unduly burden
the ability for police to carry out their duties in Justice Alito’s view. Although generalizations
can point a prediction in the right direction, this prediction can be strengthened by looking into
the specifics of the case.
It has been shown that a justice’s questions during oral arguments can reveal where he or
she stands on the case far before opinions are released (Shapiro). There is also the notion that
justices question the side that they have preconceived notions against more heavily than the side
they will likely vote with. In Fernandez v. California, Justice Alito engaged in conversation with
Fernandez’s attorney 11 times during oral arguments, while engaging with the state’s attorney
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Document Summary
Ideology is not the only factor that affects a justice"s decision in a case. If this were true, there would be no shocking cases, nor any reason to take so much time deciding a supreme court case. However, the difference between judicial textualism and originalism must be mentioned. Given records, justice alito seems to be a judicial activist, meaning he does not look at the text of the constitution as much as he looks at the meaning of the law and each situation surrounding it (moore). Prior to justice alito"s appointment, there were not many signs on where justice. Alito would stand with this issue, but it has become clear that justice alito is an originalist when it comes to interpreting the constitution (rosen). He uses the approach that as long as there is not a blatant disregard for an individual"s rights, the police have a wide range of discretion and abilities when carrying out the process of law enforcement.
