Alito nailed by legal expert accusing him of sloppy work to get his way
Raw StoryIn a column for MSNBC, Supreme Court Justice Sam Alito was called out by a legal scholar for his sloppy use of unvetted outside opinions to arrive at legal conclusions he's seeking that, in turn, have a wide-ranging impact on American life. Using a bombshell report from Politico that Supreme Court justices are increasingly relying on the so-called "friend of the court" briefs known as amicus briefs in place of legal scholarship, University of Texas Law School Professor Steve Vladek warned it is an affront to how the nation's highest court is supposed to work. With Politico reporting that conservative justices are being flooded with briefs from outside groups affiliated with well-financed conservative gadfly Leonard Leo, Vladek name-checked Alito as one of the justices who has been overusing the sketchy legal assertions found in the briefs in his legal rulings. their arguments are showing up with growing regularity in the justices’ written opinions, notably in Justice Samuel Alito's majority decision overturning Roe v. Wade," Vladek wrote, ". Especially as the court has turned more sharply to the right in recent years, that reliance has likewise skewed toward claims advanced by parties with an obvious ideological bent, at the expense of not only the rules that are supposed to govern the legal process, but also the accuracy of the narratives the court’s opinions provide."