Alito takes hard line on crime, immigration

Amy Goldstein and Sarah Cohen of The Washington Post, with a team of reporters and researchers, categorized Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito’s rulings and compared them to other federal appeals court judges, finding that “Alito has taken a harder line on criminal and immigration cases than most federal appellate judges nationwide, including those who, like him, were selected by Republican presidents.” The analysis used data from the Appeals Court Database Project; a methodology is available. The full list of Alito’s cases used in the analysis is published on the Post’s Web site.