Alito's Intelligence, Modesty Recalled by Law Prof

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- As a Yale University law student Supreme Court justice nominee Samuel Alito was "very reserved and very insightful," according to University at Buffalo Law School Professor Lee A. Albert, who was Alito's professor at Yale in the early 1970s.

"Sam was one of those students who you become friendly with because of their intelligence and personality," says Albert, who has kept in touch over the years with Alito. "He's a prince of a man, very thoughtful…much more like Supreme Court Justice John Roberts in temperament than Justice Antonin Scalia (with whom he is being compared)."

If confirmed, Albert says Alito will be a judicial conservative who "will use judicial power sparingly and will not be an ideologue.

"Sam is a man of principle who will decide as he sees fit and not because he owes debts to anyone, not because other people want him to decide in a certain way," Albert says. "He possesses many of the characteristics that people would want in a high court judge. He won't come to the case with a mind cluttered with beliefs. He will listen, read, think and then decide."

Though Albert expected Alito to have a brilliant law career, he says that unlike another of his former students at Yale, Hillary Rodham Clinton, he did not envision that Alito one day would grab the national spotlight.

"He was, and is, a very modest person," says Albert, a constitutional law expert and former clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Byron White. "He's not flamboyant, not a showman in any sense of the word.

"In contrast, Hilary was a far more political individual, an activist of the early '70s."

Albert expects Alito to acquit himself very well during Senate confirmation hearings. He expects him to be confirmed, even if there is a drawn out political battle over his confirmation.

"People did have genuinely good reason to question Harriet Miers' nomination to the court. She didn't have the experience to support her nomination," Albert says. "That is not true of Sam. He's been training every day, every minute of his professional life for this."

Alito's presence on the U.S. Supreme Court undoubtedly will make it much more conservative than it has been in several years, Albert says. "It will be a court that will minimize judicial interference with the political branches of government. Sam likely will choose to exercise the unique authority of the court more rarely than other judges would be willing to."

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