ultra-conservative
William H. Pryor, Jr.
Nominated to: Court of Appeals, 11th Circuit
Status of nomination: Nominated 4/09/03; Hearing 06/11/03
Voted out of Committee on 07/23/2003
There has been two failed cloture vote: July 31, 2003 and November 6, 2003
Pryor's Record
Reproductive Choice.
Pryor has been extremely hostile to a woman's constitutional right to reproductive choice.
Pryor has said: "I will never forget January 22, 1973, the day seven members of our highest court ripped the Constitution and ripped out the life of millions of unborn children."5
Pryor has called Roe v. Wade "the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history."6
Pryor says he agrees with Justice Scalia that "the Constitution says nothing about a right to abortion."7
Dismantling Civil Rights.
Pryor has been one of the leading proponents of reviving states' rights at the expense of federal civil rights protections.
Under Pryor's leadership, Alabama was the only state to challenge the constitutionality of a provision of the Violence Against Women Act (United States v. Morrison).8 Pryor also argued that the Supreme Court should cut back on the protections of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, 9and the Clean Water Act.
Voting Rights.
Pryor has urged Congress to consider getting rid of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, which protects the right to vote for African-Americans. While testifying before a Congressional Committee, Pryor urged the Committee to "consider seriously...the repeal or amendment of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which
affront to federalism and an expansive burden that has far outlived its usefulness."10
Rights of Gays and Lesbians.
During his tenure as Alabama Attorney General, Pryor has taken a number of actions hostile to the rights of gays and lesbians.
In 1995, as a Deputy Attorney General, Pryor and then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions joined an amicus brief in support of the state of Colorado's defense of a voter initiative that prohibited local governments from enacting laws protecting gays and lesbians from discrimination (Romer v. Evans).11 Explaining why his office felt compelled to join the brief, Pryor stated: "The attorney general of Alabama felt strongly that we don't need to be finding new rights in our Constitution we've done enough of that in recent years."12
In 2002, Pryor filed an anti-gay brief in Lawrence v. Texas on behalf of Alabama urging the Supreme Court to uphold Texas' law banning same-sex sodomy. Pryor argued that a "constitutional right that protects `the choice of one's partner' and `whether and how to connect sexually' must logically extend to activities like prostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia."13
Separation of Church and State.
Pryor has demonstrated a general lack of respect for the constitutional wall separating church and state. For example, Pryor has vigorously defended the display of the Ten Commandments in state courthouses.
Pryor has also defended a state judge's sponsorship of Christian prayers before jury assemblies.14
In 1997, Pryor, along with the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed, attended a "Save the Commandments" rally in Montgomery, Alabama where he stated: "God has chosen, through his son Jesus Christ, this time and this place for all Christians...to save our country and save our courts."15
Cruel and Unusual Punishment.
Over the course of his career in the Attorney General's office, Pryor has been a vocal opponent of the rights of criminal defendants.
In 1995, Governor Fob James revived the practice of chaining unruly prisoners to hitching posts.16 Inmate Larry Hope had been handcuffed to a hitching post on several occasions, and denied access to water and the bathroom.17 Pryor vigorously defended the actions of the prison officials.18 The Supreme Court rejected Pryor's argument: "Hope was treated in a way antithetical to human dignity -- he was hitched to a post for an extended period of time in a position that was painful and under circumstances that were both degrading and dangerous. The obvious cruelty of the practice should have put the guards on notice that they were violating the inmate's constitutional rights."19
Pryor also argued that states' execution of mentally retarded inmates did not violate the U.S. Constitution.20 The U.S. Supreme Court, in Atkins v. Virginia, again rejected Pryor's argument, and prohibited all states from executing the mentally retarded.
http://www.independentjudiciary.com/nominees/nominee.cfm?NomineeID=46
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