More evidence of Justice Scalia’s move left

After reading Gonzalez-Lopez, the interesting right-to-counsel decision by the Supreme Court (available here), I wonder if the folks who attacked Justice Kennedy for joining the “liberal wing” in Roper will now attack Justice Scalia for doing the same.  Distilled to its essence, Justice Scalia in Gonzalez-Lopez affirms the reversal of a drug dealer’s conviction based on a debatable interpretation of the Sixth Amendment.  Like his opinion in Blakely, Justice Scalia’s opinion in Gonzalez-Lopez reads like it might have come from the desk of Justices Brennan, Marshall or Warren, except perhaps for some sharp comments about the dissent in the footnotes.

Speaking of the dissent, I believe Gonzalez-Lopez has the first dissenting opinion written by Justice Alito.  That fact alone is interesting, but is even more notable because he dissents (along with the new Chief and Justices Kennedy and Thomas) from an opinion authored by Justice Scalia.  And, to continue a theme, it is fun to speculate whether Justice O’Connor (or Harriet Miers) might have dissented in the same manner in Gonzalez-Lopez.  I doubt it.

Some related posts:

• Why some defendants hope Alito is like Scalia
• Pondering Judge Roberts’ mold
• The current SCOTUS sentencing head-count
• Curious SCOTUS vote counting (and remembering that death and habeas are different)