Photo caption: Sens Leahy (top), Kennedy, Feinstein, and Schumer prepare for a final day of inquisition of Judge Alito. (Rooooters)
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter excused Samuel Alito in early afternoon Thursday, wrapping up two-and-a-half days of questions for the Supreme Court nominee about everything from abortion and presidential powers to his association to a controversial Princeton alumni group and a failure to recuse himself on one case.
"I know the judge probably thinks he's doing nothing here but being on the hot seat but we're talking about a lifetime appointment," the committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, said Thursday at the start of the hearing.
After questioning ended Thursday, committee members went into the routine, closed session to review the FBI file of the nominee. Witnesses in support and opposition to the nominee later appeared before the panel, including judges who have sat with Alito on cases. They testified that he is a man of great intellect and respect for the law, and he is a careful jurist who does not let his personal views taint his rulings.
The American Bar Association has found that Alito has the "proper judicial conduct and evenhanded application in seeking to do what is fundamentally fair," Stephen Tober, chairman of the ABA's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary, said later during witness testimony. "His integrity, his professional competence and judicial temperament is indeed found to be of the highest standard."