nominee Alito OK with all white juries

[Eric J in MN]

George W. Bush nominated Samual Alito to the US Supreme Court.

Here are Samuel Alito’s words, in rejecting an appeal by a black man put on death row by an all white jury.

You can draw your own conclusions as to whether Alito is trying to be funny or clever, or if he believes he’s making a serious argument.

“An amateur with a pocket calculator,” the majority writes,
can calculate that “there is little chance of randomly
selecting four consecutive all white juries.” Id.

Statistics can be very revealing — and also terribly
misleading in the hands of “an amateur with a pocket
calculator.” The majority’s simplistic analysis treats the
prospective jurors who were peremptorily challenged as if
they had no relevant characteristics other than race, as if
they were in effect black and white marbles in a jar from
which the lawyers drew. In reality, however, these
individuals had many other characteristics, and without
taking those variables into account, it is simply not possible
to determine whether the prosecution’s strikes were based
on race or something else.

The dangers in the majority’s approach can be easily
illustrated. Suppose we asked our “amateur with a pocket
calculator” whether the American people take right- or left-
handedness into account in choosing their Presidents.
Although only about 10% of the population is left-handed,
left-handers have won five of the last six presidential
elections.15 Our “amateur with a calculator” would conclude
that “there is little chance of randomly selecting” left-
handers in five out of six presidential elections. But does it
follow that the voters cast their ballots based on whether a
candidate was right- or left-handed?

[lapfog_1]

1. The opinion that he is writing is serious

it's simply terribly flawed.

First off, there is no serious prejudice against left handed people
(other than some inconveniences), nor is handedness something which
is readily identifiable. Race, on the other hand (irony here btw), is.

Second, it's quite possible that people ARE, in fact, choosing left
handed people to be president. Let me explain. Someone who grows up
in a right handed world who is left handed may have to develop
particular brain patterns from a very early age. Those brain patterns
may make them natural born politicians... hence the selection. So
it may not be random at all (as he is implying in his opinion).

Excluding black jurors is/was a standard practice by white prosecutors
against black defendants. It is, and should be, abhor ant to our
legal system.

[Inland]

2. Mr. Bigbrain fucks up his own analogy.

He says the "amateur with a calculator" would conclude that people chose left handed candidates. But the amateur in both cases would have better explanations...namely, that he's actually aware of racism as a reason to believe in guilt, and he's never heard of anyone voting on the basis of handed-ness.

It's pretty funny that one could more easily believe that being left handed is correlated with some personal attibute leading to political sense than to believe that race is correlated with some personal attribute completely unrelated to race itself that is relevant to a verdict.

[Nothing Without Hope]

3. His views of civil rights are "not acceptable"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2206263
thread title (10/31): Not just Roe - Think Progress gives ALITO's awful civil rights positions:

[Name removed]

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