Elena Kagan, Conservative?

Dahlia Lithwick reviews the voting record of the newest justice:

Kagan voted with the Court’s conservative bloc in a case concerning a grandmother convicted of shaking a baby to death. The appeals court freed the grandmother, finding the jury’s conclusion irrational. Kagan broke with the left wing of the Court and silently joined the conservative majority in an unsigned opinion reversing the decision.

Kagan may prove more conservative than her predecessor Stevens, or this can be an outlier. Either way, the justice isn’t talking. That’s a rather conservative quality, and it’s generally the Court’s conservatives who speak reverently of judicial restraint and humility. While some may find her close-to-the-vest behavior a strategy in itself, it might instead be proof that Kagan is a purist. One with a real commitment to the fundamental purpose of the Court: to weigh each case independently and impartially.