INDEPTH: U.S. POLITICS
Judge Alito
CBC News Online | Nov. 1, 2005
 George W. Bush nominates Samuel Alito.
Alito replaces Harriet Miers, Bush's first pick to replace the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor. Miers withdrew her nomination after Democrats questioned her experience and Republicans questioned whether she was conservative enough.
» More on Harriet Miers.
Bush's nomination of Alito appears to address both of their concerns.
Alito earned his law degree in 1975 from Yale, where he edited the Yale Law Journal. Over the next 15 years, he worked as an attorney for the U.S. federal government, from law clerk to U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey.
In 1990, Bush's father, President George H. W. Bush, appointed Alito to the Court of Appeals. His nomination was confirmed in the Senate by unanimous voice vote. From 1999 to 2004, Alito taught courses on constitutional law at Seton Hall University in Newark, N.J.
"Judge Alito has shown a mastery of the law, a deep commitment to justice and he is a man of enormous character," said George W. Bush at Alito's nomination.
As an appeals judge, Alito's decisions have earned him a reputation as a judicial conservative. He's known by the nickname "Scalito," a reference to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a judge who holds similarly conservative views.
Alito's most famous legal opinion is likely the one his opponents will focus on during his confirmation hearing.
In 1991, Alito wrote the dissenting opinion in a 2-1 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In the opinion, he supported a Pennsylvania law that required women to inform their husbands before having an abortion. Alito said the law was reasonable and allowed for exceptions in certain cases, such as if the husband were abusive or not the father. The case went to the Supreme Court where the law was struck down.
In another controversial dissenting opinion, Alito wrote that police officers who strip-searched a mother and her 10-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant should not have been convicted of violating their constitutional rights.
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