The Wrong Choice: Alito

From reading summaries of his findings, it is pretty clear that Judge Alito is a conservative jurist. However, the Washington Post article comes to several conclusions about Alito that point to a troubled past in enforcing the separation between the judiciary, executive and legislative branches. For instance, the Post reports that:

a closer look finds that he dissents most often in areas where his views are least typical of the average judge: cases in which he has favored religion and largely sided against immigrants and one group of convicted criminals: prisoners facing the death penalty.

The groups that usually push religious arguments (with a few exceptions) are right-wing evangelical Christian groups. In terms of immigrants and death penalty litigants, most are minorities (almost exclusively in the former category and more then a represntative share in the latter category).
The Post article also notes that, in the words of Martin Redish, a constitutional scholar at Northwestern University School of Law, Alito is:

"clearly tough-minded . . . having very little sympathy for those asserting rights against the government."

Under these standards (which I think are essential for Supreme Court Justices), Alito is a bad candidate.