(page 2 of 7) Overall, the analysis shows, Alito does not disagree with majority opinions more frequently than most federal appeals judges do in similar cases. Yet a closer look finds that he dissents most often in areas where his views are least typical of the average judge: cases in which he has favored religion and largely sided against immigrants and one group of convicted criminals: prisoners facing the death penalty. "Here is where Alito really takes his stand," said Kenneth L. Manning, a political scientist at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth who has studied the voting behavior of other appellate judges. Because Supreme Court justices are free to disregard precedent, Alito's decisions are an imperfect barometer of how he might rule if he succeeds Sandra Day O'Connor, a pivotal member of the high court. Still, scholars said that his opinions since joining the 3rd Circuit in 1990 yield important clues, such as which areas of law he is passionate about, whether he strives for consensus and how his views align with Supreme Court decisions. To examine his record, The Post looked at how Alito voted on all 221 cases he has helped to decide in which the n3rd Circuit --which handles appeals from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the Virgin Islands -- issued a divided ruling. Those cases provide a revealing window to a judge's ideology, judicial scholars say, because they involve legal issues that are unclear. In that way, they also are most like the cases the Supreme Court hears, said Donald R. Songer, a political scientist at the University of South Carolina who studies appellate courts. The idea of trying to gauge a judge's ideology from his voting patterns on different types of cases is unpopular among law professors who prefer to study legal reasoning case by case. But the method used by The Post is well accepted among political scientists -- many of whom clump together votes on types of cases to determine whether a judge is liberal or conservative, a step The Post did not take. The analysis included 34 majority opinions and 55 dissenting ones that Alito wrote, plus 132 in which he voted but did not put his views in writing.         PREVIOUS PAGE RETURN TO BIO NEXT PAGE