Date: January 12, 2006
Senator: Sessions
Topic:
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SPECTER: Thank you, Senator Kyl.
Senator Durbin?
DURBIN: Mr. Chairman, I thank the members of the panel for their public service. I have no questions. And I would like to associate myself with the remarks of Senator Leahy.
SPECTER: Thank you very much, Senator Durbin.
Senator DeWine?
DEWINE: I have no questions, Mr. Chairman.
SPECTER: Senator Sessions?
SESSIONS: I would just like to ask the panel, I see one of the articles that stirred up some of this discussion about not being evenhanded judge actually only considered 221 cases in the judge's first six years on the bench.
I'm sure you as professionals who have been there, your judgment is better about his style and fairness than some abstract numbers would be. But I will just ask you, Judge Scirica, maybe, and if others would like to comment please do so, on civil rights cases that I've seen here, the civil rights cases Judge Alito wrote, the panel agreed with him 90 percent of the time and his opinions were unanimous 90 percent of the time. That doesn't sound like an extreme position to me.
What would you say about that?
SCIRICA: Well, I would agree. That would comport with my recollection of these cases.
SESSIONS: And I notice the respect Judge Lewis had for Judge Alito. It said, when he sat on panels where both the other judges were Democratic appointees, the decision was unanimous in 100 percent of the cases, or whatever those statistics show.
And then, with regard to the immigration cases, it says that his appeals, the average judge in the country, in the average cases, the immigrant wins asylum claims in the court of appeals in slightly over 11 percent of the time. But in Judge Alito's record he ruled for the immigrant seeking asylum in fully 18 percent of the cases.
Do those numbers, Judge Scirica, strike you as sort of what the -- well, the 11 percent, is that about what you would expect?
SCIRICA: Yes, sir.
SESSIONS: And in the cases that he wrote opinions on, the average court of appeals judge ruled for the immigrants 8 percent; he ruled for the immigrants 19 percent.
Well, I don't know that those numbers mean a whole lot, but I do think they tend to rebut some of the numbers that we've seen floating around, because your opinion of him does not reflect a person who shows bias.
In the Rybar case, Judge Gibbons, you're no longer on the bench, you could be honest with us right here in Congress. If the Congress had put in an interstate commerce nexus in the statute they passed about machine guns, like they did in ITSMV, Interstate Transportation of Stolen Motor Vehicle, or interstate transportation of stolen property, kidnapping or theft from interstate shipment, it would have been upheld, wouldn't it?
GIBBONS: That's what he said in his dissenting opinion.
SESSIONS: So the truth is that Congress missed the boat.
GIBBONS: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
SESSIONS: And we'd be fix it soon as we passed the law correctly, I would submit.
SESSIONS: And I would just ask this, Judge Aldisert. I'm serious about this question, but I think Judge Roberts agreed with me that if an individual within the heart of Pennsylvania or New Jersey picks up a rock and kills another person, that is not a federal crime. Is that correct? Unless there's something added, without an interstate nexus of some kind, or that would be prosecuted solely by the state court.
(UNKNOWN): Unless he stole the rock out of an interstate shipment.
(LAUGHTER)
LEWIS: It could be a violation of federal civil rights, also.
(UNKNOWN): Or if the person he assaulted was a federal official.
SESSIONS: Right.
(UNKNOWN): A president or a vice president or a senator.
(LAUGHTER)
SESSIONS: Well, Judge Lewis said it could be a civil rights violation if he was in a way to deny someone of civil rights or if he was a federal official. But classically, the federal criminal law has been tied to interstate commerce nexus, hasn't it, Judge Aldisert?
(UNKNOWN): Civil rights.
SESSIONS: Judge Lewis?
LEWIS: That's right.
SESSIONS: Thank you.
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