Scalito: Police can shoot first and ask questions later (except the suspect may be dead)

The reasons for defeating Scalito are mounting. Not only is he anti-choice but also believes the police should have free reign to murder suspects. His thinking is directly opposed to settled Supreme Court opinion.

According to the L.A. Times:

"Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.... wrote that he saw no constitutional problem with a police officer shooting and killing an unarmed teenager who was fleeing after a $10 home burglary.
"I think the shooting [in this case] can be justified as reasonable," Alito wrote in a 1984 memo to Justice Department officials.

Because the officer could not know for sure why a suspect was fleeing, the courts should not set a rule forbidding the use of deadly force, he said.

'I do not think the Constitution provides an answer to the officer's dilemma,' Alito advised.

A year later, however, the Supreme Court used the same case to set a firm national rule against the routine use of "deadly force" against fleeing suspects who pose no danger.

'It is not better that all felony suspects die than that they escape," wrote Justice Byron White for a 6-3 majority in Tennessee vs. Garner. "Where the suspect poses no immediate threat to the officer and no threat to others, the harm resulting from failing to apprehend him does not justify the use of deadly force to do so.'"

(For more on this; also see talkleft; Daily Kos; and Digby)