Samuel Alito | |
|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2007 | |
| Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States | |
| Assumed office January 31, 2006 | |
| Nominated by | George W. Bush |
| Preceded by | Sandra Day O'Connor |
| Judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit | |
| In office April 30, 1990 – January 31, 2006 | |
| Nominated by | George H. W. Bush |
| Preceded by | John Joseph Gibbons |
| Succeeded by | Joseph A. Greenaway Jr. |
| United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey | |
| In office December 10, 1987 – April 30, 1990 | |
| President | Ronald Reagan George H. W. Bush |
| Preceded by | Thomas Greelish |
| Succeeded by | Michael Chertoff |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. (1950-04-01)April 1, 1950 (age 75) Trenton, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | |
| Awards | Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (2017) |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service | United States Army (1972) United States Army Reserve (1972–1980) |
| Rank | Captain |
| Unit | Army Signal Corps |
| Battles/wars | Vietnam War |
Alito delivering the opinion of the Court inMurphy v. National Collegiate Athletic Association. Recorded May 14, 2018 | |
Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. (/əˈliːtoʊ/ə-LEE-toh; born April 1, 1950[1]) is an American jurist who serves as anassociate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He wasnominated to the high court by PresidentGeorge W. Bush on October 31, 2005, and has served on it since January 31, 2006. AfterAntonin Scalia, Alito is the secondItalian American justice to serve on theU.S. Supreme Court.
Alito was raised inHamilton Township, New Jersey, and graduated fromPrinceton University andYale Law School. After law school, he worked as an assistant attorney general for theOffice of Legal Counsel and served as theU.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey. In 1990, Alito was appointed as a judge on theU.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, where he served until joining the Supreme Court. He has called himself a "practical originalist"[2] and is a member of the Supreme Court'sconservative bloc.[3]
Alito has written majority opinions in thelandmark casesMcDonald v. Chicago (2010) on firearm rights,[4]Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014) on insurance coverage,[5]Janus v. AFSCME (2018) on public-sector union security agreements,[6] andDobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022) on abortion.[7]
Alito was born inTrenton, New Jersey. He was the son of Samuel A. Alito Sr., aCalabrian immigrant fromRoccella Ionica,Calabria, and Rose Fradusco, anItalian-American whose parents came fromPalazzo San Gervasio inBasilicata.[8][9][10] Alito's father earned a master's degree atRutgers University and was a high school teacher and later the first director of the New Jersey Office of Legislative Services, a state government position he held from 1952 to 1984. Alito's mother was a schoolteacher.[11]
Alito grew up inHamilton Township, New Jersey, a suburb of Trenton.[12] He attendedSteinert High School, where he graduated in 1968 as the classvaledictorian,[13] subsequently matriculating atPrinceton University. In 1972, he graduated with aBachelor of Arts,summa cum laude, from theWoodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.[14] His senior thesis, supervised by political scientistWalter F. Murphy, was entitled "An Introduction to the Italian Constitutional Court".[15]
At Princeton, Alito chaired a student conference in 1971 called "The Boundaries of Privacy in American Society", which supported curbs on domestic intelligence gathering and anticipated the need fora statute anda court to oversee national security surveillance.[16] The conference report itself also called for thedecriminalization ofsodomy, and urged an end to discrimination againstgay people in hiring. Alito also led theAmerican Whig-Cliosophic Society's Debate Panel during his time at Princeton.[17] He avoided Princeton'seating clubs, joining Stevenson Hall instead.[18]
In December 1969, while a sophomore at Princeton, Alito received a low lottery number of 32 in theSelective Service drawing. He became a member of the school'sArmyROTC program.[19][a] Alito was commissioned asecond lieutenant in theUnited States Army Reserve in 1972. He began his military duty after graduating from law school in 1975 and served on active duty from September to December while attending theSignal Officer Basic Course atFort Gordon,Georgia. Alito was promoted tofirst lieutenant andcaptain, and completed his service obligation as a member of the inactive reserve before being honorably discharged in 1980.[19]
Among the members of the American Whig–Cliosophic Society, Alito was "almost alone" in his familiarity with the writings ofJohn Marshall Harlan II[21] and was much influenced by the course on constitutional interpretation taught byWalter F. Murphy, also his faculty adviser.[21] During his senior year at Princeton, Alito moved out of New Jersey for the first time to study in Italy, where he wrote his thesis on the Italian legal system.[22] Graduating in 1972, Alito left a sign of his aspirations in his yearbook, which said that he hoped to "eventually warm a seat on the Supreme Court".[23]
Alito then attendedYale Law School, where he served as an editor of theYale Law Journal and earned aJuris Doctor in 1975.[14]
After graduating from law school, Alitoclerked forThird Circuit appeals judgeLeonard I. Garth inNewark, New Jersey, in 1976 and 1977.[22] He interviewed with Supreme Court JusticeByron White for a clerkship but was not hired.[24] Between 1977 and 1981, Alito was AssistantUnited States Attorney,District of New Jersey.[25] There, he served under the then-chief of the appeals division Assistant U.S. Attorney,Maryanne Trump Barry (Barry, the eldest sister ofDonald Trump, later became a federal judge).[26] While an Assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, he prosecuted many cases involvingdrug trafficking andorganized crime.[27]
From 1981 to 1985, Alito was Assistant toU.S. Solicitor GeneralRex E. Lee. In that capacity he argued 12 cases before the Supreme Court for the federal government.[28] InThornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists (1986), the Supreme Court ruled againstCharles Fried after he rejected a memo by Alito urging the Solicitor General to avoid directly attacking the constitutional right to an abortion.[29] Alito lost only two of the cases he argued before the Supreme Court.[30]
From 1985 to 1987, Alito wasDeputy Assistant Attorney General underCharles J. Cooper in theOffice of Legal Counsel during the tenure of Attorney GeneralEdwin Meese.John F. Manning worked under Alito there.[18] Between 1986 and 1987, Alito authored nearly 470 pages of memoranda, in which he argued for expanding his client's law enforcement and personnel authorities.[31] In his 1985 application for Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Alito espousedconservative views, namingWilliam F. Buckley, Jr., theNational Review,Alexander Bickel, andBarry Goldwater's1964 presidential campaign as major influences. He also expressed concern aboutWarren Court decisions in the areas of criminal procedure, theEstablishment Clause, andreapportionment.[32]
From 1987 to 1990, Alito was theUnited States Attorney for the District of New Jersey.[33] When he arrived, the office had begun the prosecution of 20 defendants accused of being mob affiliates ofAnthony Accetturo.[34] In August 1988, the two-year trial, then the longest federal criminal trial in history, ended in the acquittal of all 20 after less than two days of jury deliberations.[35] Alito soon hiredMichael Chertoff as his chief deputy.[35]
After an FBI agent was shot in the line of duty in 1988, Alito personally handled the trial, assigning himself the then-noviceStuart Rabner as an assistant, and securing the shooter's conviction.[35] In March 1988, Alito sought a rehearing of extradition proceedings against two Indian men, represented byRon Kuby, who were accused of being terrorist assassins, after Alito discovered that the death threats his prosecutor, Judy G. Russell, had received had been sent to her by herself.[36] The prosecutor was later found not guilty ofobstruction of justice by reason ofinsanity, after psychiatrists found she may have suffered fromschizophrenia, with up to fourdistinct personalities.[35][37] In 1989, Alito prosecuted a member of theJapanese Red Army for planning a terrorist bombing in Manhattan.[38]
Alito is a member of theFederalist Society,[39] a group of conservative andlibertarian lawyers and legal students interested in conservative legal theory.[40]
Third Circuit JudgesLeonard I. Garth, for whom Alito clerked, andMaryanne Trump Barry, under whom Alito worked as an assistant U.S. Attorney, recommended Alito's judicial nomination to PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush.[26] On February 20, 1990, Bush nominated Alito to theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, to a seat vacated byJohn Joseph Gibbons. TheAmerican Bar Association rated Alito "Well Qualified" at the time of his nomination. He was confirmed byunanimous consent in theSenate on April 27, 1990,[41][42] and received his commission three days later. As a Third Circuit judge, his chambers were inNewark, New Jersey.[22]
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On July 1, 2005,Associate JusticeSandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement from theSupreme Court effective upon the confirmation of a successor. President George W. Bush first nominatedJohn Roberts to the vacancy, but whenChief JusticeWilliam Rehnquist died on September 3, Bush withdrew Roberts's nomination to fill O'Connor's seat and instead nominated Roberts to the Chief Justiceship. On October 3, Bush nominatedHarriet Miers to replace O'Connor. Miers withdrew her acceptance of the nomination on October 27 after encountering widespread opposition.
On October 31, Bush announced that he was nominating Alito to O'Connor's seat, and he submitted the nomination to the Senate on November 10.[44] Alito was unanimously rated "well qualified" to fill the Associate Justice post by theAmerican Bar Association's Standing Committee on Federal Judiciary, which measures the professional qualifications of a nominee.[45] The committee rates judges as "not qualified", "qualified", or "well qualified".[46]Leonard Leo was selected to play a role in shepherding Alito's appointment through the Senate.[47]
Alito's confirmation hearing was held from January 9 to 13, 2006. Two active-duty members of the Third Circuit, JudgeMaryanne Trump Barry and Chief JudgeAnthony J. Scirica, testified in Alito's confirmation hearing, as did five senior and retired circuit judges.[48] Alito responded to some 700 questions over 18 hours of testimony. He rejected the use of foreign legal materials in the Constitution, did not state a position on cameras in courtrooms (he had supported them while on the 3rd Circuit), said Congress could choose to outlawLGBT employment discrimination in the United States if it wished, and told then-SenatorJoe Biden (D-DE) that he endorsed a weak version of theunitary executive theory.[49]
On January 24, his nomination was voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 10–8 party line vote. Democratic Senators characterized Alito as a hard-right conservative in the mold ofClarence Thomas orRobert Bork. Alito professed reluctance to commit to any type of ideology, stating he would act as an impartial referee. He said he would look at abortion with an open mind but would not state how he would rule onRoe v. Wade if that decision were to be challenged.
Democrats on the committee asked Alito about his past association with the conservative groupConcerned Alumni of Princeton.[50] Alito said that he had listed an affiliation with the group on his application toRonald Reagan's Justice Department in order to establish his conservative credentials: "You have to look at the question that I was responding to and the form that I was filling out... I was applying for a position in the Reagan administration. And my answers were truthful statements, but what I was trying to outline were the things that were relevant to obtaining a political position."[51] But during the confirmation hearings, he disavowed the group, whose views were criticized as racist and sexist, saying: "I disavow them. I deplore them. They represent things that I have always stood against and I can't express too strongly."[51]
TheAmerican Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) formally opposed Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court. The ACLU has only taken this step three other times in its entire history, opposing the nominations ofWilliam Rehnquist,Robert Bork, andBrett Kavanaugh.[52] In releasing its report[53] on Alito, ACLU Executive DirectorAnthony Romero said, "At a time when our president has claimed unprecedented authority to spy on Americans and jail terrorism suspects indefinitely, America needs a Supreme Court justice who will uphold our preciouscivil liberties. Alito's record shows a willingness to support government actions that abridge individual freedoms."[54]
Debate on the nomination began in the full Senate on January 25. After a failedfilibuster attempt by SenatorJohn Kerry, the Senate confirmed Alito to the Supreme Court on January 31 by a vote of 58–42.[55][56] All Senate Republicans voted in favor of confirmation exceptLincoln Chafee, and all Senate Democrats voted against confirmation exceptTim Johnson,Robert Byrd,Kent Conrad, andBen Nelson. An Independent,Jim Jeffords, voted against confirmation.[57][58] Alito was sworn in as an associate justice of the Supreme Court later that day.[59][60] He became the110th justice, the second Italian-American,[61][62] the 11th Catholic in the history of the Supreme Court, the fifth Catholic on the Court at the time he assumed office,[63] and one of six on the Court as of 2024.[64][65]
Because Alito joined the Court mid-term, he did not participate in the decisions of most of the early cases in the Court term because he had not heard arguments for them. These decisions were released with an 8-member Court; none were 4–4, so Alito would not have been the deciding vote in any of them if he had participated. Only three of these cases –Garcetti v. Ceballos,Hudson v. Michigan, andKansas v. Marsh – were reargued since a tie needed to be broken.[clarification needed]
Alito delivered his first written Supreme Court opinion on May 1, 2006, inHolmes v. South Carolina, a case involving the right of criminal defendants to present evidence that a third party committed the crime. From the beginning of theRehnquist Court to the nomination of JusticeElena Kagan, each new justice has been given a unanimous opinion to write as their first Supreme Court opinion; this practice is designed to help "break in" new justices so that each justice has at least one unanimous, uncontroversial opinion under their belt.[66][67] Alito wrote for a unanimous court in ordering a new trial for Bobby Lee Holmes due to South Carolina's rule that barred such evidence based on the strength of the prosecution's case, rather than on the relevance and strength of the defense evidence itself. His other majority opinions in his first term were inZedner v. United States,Woodford v. Ngo, andArlington Central School District Board of Education v. Murphy.
In his first term, Alito compiled a fairly conservative record. For example, in the three reargued cases (Garcetti v. Ceballos,Hudson v. Michigan andKansas v. Marsh), Alito created a 5–4 majority by voting with the four other conservative Justices –Chief Justice John G. Roberts and JusticesAntonin Scalia,Anthony Kennedy, andClarence Thomas. He further voted with the conservative wing of the court onSanchez-Llamas v. Oregon[68] andRapanos v. United States. Alito also dissented inHamdan v. Rumsfeld alongside Justices Scalia and Thomas.[69]
Alito delivered the Supreme Court Historical Society's 2008 Annual Lecture, "The Origin of the Baseball Antitrust Exemption". The lecture was published in two journals.[70][71]
In 2023,Martin–Quinn scores suggested that Alito was the most conservative Supreme Court justice.[72] While his voting record is conservative, he does not always join the opinions of the Court's other conservative justices. On February 1, 2006, in Alito's first decision on the Supreme Court, he voted with the majority (6–3) to refuse Missouri's request to vacate thestay of execution issued by theEighth Circuit for death-row inmateMichael Taylor. Justices Roberts, Scalia and Thomas were in favor of vacating the stay; Missouri had twice asked the justices to lift the stay and permit the execution.[73] Moreover, despite having been at one time nicknamed "Scalito", Alito's views have differed from those of Scalia (and Thomas), as in the Michael Taylor case and various other cases of the 2005 term. A fierce critic of reliance on legislative history in statutory interpretation,[74] Scalia was the only member of the Court inZedner v. United States not to join a section of Alito's opinion that discussed the legislative history of the statute in question. In two higher-profile cases, one involving the constitutionality of political gerrymandering and one involvingcampaign finance reform (LULAC v. Perry andRandall v. Sorrell), Alito adopted narrow positions, declining to join the bolder positions advanced by either philosophical side of the Court. According to aSCOTUSblog analysis of 2005 term decisions, Alito and Scalia concurred in the result of 86% of decisions in which both participated, and concurred in full in 75%.[75] Alito also differed from Scalia in applying originalism flexibly to arrive at conservative outcomes "with plodding consistency", rather than following it so strictly as to occasionally produce outcomes unfavorable to conservatives.[76]
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Alito's majority opinion in the 2008 worker protection caseGomez-Perez v. Potter cleared the way for federal workers who experience retaliation after filing age discrimination complaints to sue for damages. He sided with the liberal bloc of the court, inferring protection against retaliation in the federal-sector provision of theAge Discrimination in Employment Act despite the lack of an explicit provision concerning retaliation.
Alito joined Thomas in writing a separate dissent inObergefell v. Hodges.[77][78][79] In 2020, Alito wrote a dissent joined by Thomas toBostock v. Clayton County, arguing that Title VII of theCivil Rights Act of 1964 does not prohibit discrimination bysexual orientation orgender identity and criticizing the majority's interpretation of Title VII.[80][81] In October 2020, Alito agreed with the other justices on the denial of an appeal filed by Kim Davis, a county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.[82]
On November 12, 2020, Alito made headlines for comments about theCOVID-19 pandemic. Speaking to theFederalist Society, Alito criticized what he called the "loss of individual liberties", saying, "We have never before seen restrictions as severe, extensive and prolonged as those experienced for most of 2020" and calling the pandemic "a Constitutional stress test".[83]
Alito has called himself a "practicaloriginalist"[2] and is a member of the Court'sconservative bloc.[84] He has been described as one of the Court's "most conservative justices".[3][72][85][86]
According toThe New Yorker, since the 2020 appointment of JusticeAmy Coney Barrett, Alito has become "the embodiment of a conservative majority that is ambitious and extreme", overruling progressive precedents from the 1960s and '70s that were previously out of conservatives' reach.[76]
Alito drew controversy in June 2024 when a filmmaker who had been posing as a conservative posted a secret recording in which he could be heard agreeing with her assertion that Christians should win "the moral argument" against the Left and return the country to "a place of godliness".[87][88] When asked aboutpolitical polarization in the United States, he responded, "one side or the other is going to win".[89]
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In 2003, Congress passed thePartial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, which led to a lawsuit in the case ofGonzales v. Carhart. The Court had previously ruled inStenberg v. Carhart that a state's ban onpartial birth abortion was unconstitutional because such a ban did not have an exception in the case of a threat to the health of the mother. The membership of the Court changed afterStenberg, with Roberts and Alito replacing Rehnquist (a dissenter inRoe) and O'Connor (a supporter ofRoe) respectively. Further, the ban at issue inGonzales v. Carhart was a federal statute, rather than a state statute as in theStenberg case.
On April 18, 2007, the Supreme Court handed down a decision ruling the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act constitutional.[90] Kennedy wrote for the five-justice majority that Congress was within its power to generally ban the procedure, although the Court left open the door for as-applied challenges. Kennedy said that the challenged statute was consistent with the Court's prior decisions inRoe v. Wade,Planned Parenthood v. Casey, andStenberg v. Carhart.
Alito joined fully in the majority, as did Roberts. Thomas filed a concurring opinion, joined by Scalia, contending that the Court's prior decisions inRoe v. Wade andPlanned Parenthood v. Casey should be reversed, and also noting that the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act may exceed the powers of Congress under the Commerce Clause. Alito, Roberts, and Kennedy did not join that assertion. JusticesRuth Bader Ginsburg,David Souter,Stephen Breyer, andJohn Paul Stevens dissented, contending that the ruling ignored Supreme Court abortion precedent.
On May 2, 2022,Politico published aleak of a first draft of a majority opinion by Alito that circulated among the justices in February 2022 for the upcoming decision inDobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. The opinion would overturnRoe v. Wade andPlanned Parenthood v. Casey, and would likely either severely restrict access to abortion or make it completely illegal in states withtrigger laws.[91] On June 24, 2022, the ruling was handed down. It was mostly identical to the leaked draft, with the addition of replies to the dissenting and concurring opinions. Alito wrote that "Roe was egregiously wrong from the start", that its reasoning was "exceptionally weak" and that, "far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue", it had "enflamed debate and deepened division".[92] In July 2022, Alito gave his first public comments on the ruling in a keynote address forNotre Dame Law School's Religious Liberty Initiative in Rome. He mocked several foreign leaders for criticizing the decision, particularly U.K. Prime MinisterBoris Johnson, referencing his pending resignation, andPrince Harry, Duke of Sussex, who had compared the ruling to the2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[93][94] During an October 2022 talk atThe Heritage Foundation, Alito said that the leaked opinion made some justices "targets for assassination", referring to theassassination attempt on fellow Justice Brett Kavanaugh during that year.[95] At the same event, he said that "questioning [the Court's] integrity crosses an important line", which many media commentators interpreted as criticism of Kagan's recent statements on the court's overturning of precedent during the past term.[96]
In November 2022, as the investigation into who had leaked the draft opinion was still ongoing, it was revealed thatRob Schenck, an evangelical minister and former anti-abortion activist, had written Roberts a letter about an alleged previous leak of a Supreme Court decision. He wrote that he had been informed of the outcome ofBurwell v. Hobby Lobby weeks before the June 2014 decision, authored by Alito and favorable to anti-abortion conservatives, was officially announced.[97] Schenck claimed to have heard of the outcome from Gayle Wright, a conservative donor, shortly after she and her husband had lunch with Alito and his wife on June 3, 2014.[97]The New York Times claims contemporaneous emails written by Schenck "strongly suggested he knew the outcome and the author of the Hobby Lobby decision before it was made public."[97] In a statement, Alito denied having revealed the outcome or authorship of any decision before its official announcement, but did not dispute that the June 3 lunch with Wright had occurred.[97]
On April 21, 2023, Alito dissented when the Supreme Court reversed a ruling by JudgeMatthew Kacsmaryk that would have bannedmifepristone (anemergency contraception medication) nationwide.[98][99][100]
Alito has also dissented from the opinions of the Court's conservative justices on free speech cases, one of which,Snyder v. Phelps, had to do withWestboro Baptist Church members' right to protest a military funeral.[101] Alito offered the sole dissenting opinion, saying protesters "were sued under a very well-established tort that goes back to the 19th century, the intentional infliction of emotional, of severe emotional distress. And I thought that this tort constituted a reasonable exception to the First Amendment, but my colleagues disagreed about that."[102]
In the 2007 landmark free speech caseMorse v. Frederick, Alito joined Roberts's majority decision that speech advocating drug use can be banned in public schools, but also warned that the ruling must be circumscribed so as not to interfere with political speech, such as discussion of themedical marijuana debate.[103]
In 1985, Alito married Martha-Ann Bomgardner, a law librarian who met him during his trips to the library as a law clerk.[22] They have two children; Martha-Ann left her profession to raise them.[104] Alito resided with his family inWest Caldwell, New Jersey, before his Supreme Court nomination.[105] He has since moved toFairfax County, Virginia.[106]
SinceStephen Breyer's retirement in 2022, Alito has been the onlymilitary veteran on the Court.[107] He is a baseball fan and a longtime fan of thePhiladelphia Phillies.[108] ThePhillie Phanatic was a special guest at his Supreme Court welcome dinner.[109]
In 2013, as part of the ongoing fallout from theEdward Snowden case, former National Security Agency analystRussell Tice revealed that, during 2002 and 2003, theNational Security Agency targeted Alito's phones, and those of his staff and his family, for surveillance.[110][111]
As anadjunct professor atSeton Hall University School of Law in Newark from 1999 to 2004, Alito taught courses inconstitutional law and an original course onterrorism andcivil liberties. In 1995, he received the school'sSaint Thomas More Medal "in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of law".[112] On May 25, 2007, he delivered the commencement address at Seton Hall Law's commencement ceremony and received an honorary law degree from the school.[113]
As a visiting professor atDuke University School of Law, Alito taught Current Issues in Constitutional Interpretation in fall 2011 and a course in the Master of Laws in Judicial Studies program in summer 2012.[114][better source needed]
On June 20, 2023,ProPublica published an investigation of Alito's relationship with billionaire businessmanPaul Singer, focusing on a trip Alito and Singer took to a luxury fishing resort in Alaska and suggesting Alito "violated a federal law that requires justices to disclose most gifts", such as private jet travel.[115] The article said he should have recused himself in cases involving Singer and that he was obligated to disclose certain benefits as gifts on his 2008 Financial Disclosure Report. Legal ethics experts quoted inProPublica called Alito's behavior "unacceptable".[116]
Shortly before publication of theProPublica article, Alito published anop-ed inThe Wall Street Journal challenging the article's assertions and claiming that the source "misleads its readers".[117][118] His preemptory challenge maintained thatProPublica's charges were invalid.[115] Alito further contended that because of an exemption in the Court's reporting rules for "personal hospitality", he was not required to disclose private air transport for social trips.[117] His unconventional decision to bypass reporters' questions and preempt the story via a separate publication tookProPublica's reporters by surprise.[119] The decision to publish the op-ed was criticized both within theWall Street Journal and by media critics, in part because it lacked fact-checking.[119][120]
TheProPublica report on unreported gifts to both Alito andThomas led several members of Congress to call for ethics reform for the Supreme Court. This included a Senate Judiciary Committee proposal to establish a code of ethics for the Court.[121] In a July 2023Wall Street Journal opinion column, Alito wrote, "Congress did not create the Supreme Court [...] I know this is a controversial view, but I'm willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court—period."[122] This declaration led to further debate among lawmakers. SenatorChris Murphy said the Constitution gives Congress power to oversee the Court: "It is just wrong on the facts to say that Congress doesn't have anything to do with the rules guiding the Supreme Court. In fact, from the very beginning, Congress has set those rules."[123]
In 2024,The Guardian andThe New York Times reported that Alito accepted $900 tickets fromPrincess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis for a music festival atSaint Emmeram's Abbey.[124][125]
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On January 17, 2021, an upside-downAmerican flag was flown outside Alito's residence inAlexandria, Virginia.[126] The upside-down flag, traditionally a signal of distress,[127] was displayed by supporters of former presidentDonald Trump during theJanuary 6 Capitol attack and by members of theStop the Steal movement, anattempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election. In the summer of 2023, thePine Tree Flag was flown at Alito's beach house onLong Beach Island inNew Jersey.[128] It was one of the flags used during theAmerican Revolution,[129] and has been used byChristian nationalists; it was also carried during the Capitol attack.[130][131] The flag displays, reported byThe New York Times, caused controversy, including questions about judicial impartiality. During the flag's presence, the Supreme Court was considering the appeal inUnited States v. Fischer (2023), a case involving the January 6 Capitol attack.[132]
A secret recording byadvocacy journalistLauren Windsor captured Martha-Ann Alito discussing the event in June 2024. Martha-Ann Alito said, "I want aSacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at thePride flag for the next month", adding that she would be "changing the flags" when her husband was "free of this nonsense" and that she would come with her own flag, which would be white with yellow and orange flames and read "vergogna" ("shame" in Italian). She also told Windsor that she would "get" "the media", adding: "Look at me. Look at me. I'm German, from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I'm going to give it back to you".[133]
Reactions were mixed, with most Democrats condemning Alito and most Republicans defending him.Senate Committee on the Judiciary chairmanDick Durbin requested Alito's recusal from cases involving the January 6 Capitol attack or the2020 presidential election.[134]House Committee on the Judiciary memberSteve Cohen introduced a resolution to censure Alito.[135] Forty-five representatives, joined by ranking member of the House Judiciary CommitteeHank Johnson, signed a letter requesting Alito's recusal.[136] SenatorTom Cotton called the controversy an intimidation attempt,[137] while SenatorLindsey Graham said hoisting the upside-down flag was "not good judgment".[138]
Alito responded that he had no involvement in hoisting either flag, saying: "I was not even aware of the upside-down flag until it was called to my attention" and "My wife is fond of flying flags. I am not".[139] In an interview withFox News, he reiterated that the flag was flown in response to a dispute with a neighbor,[140] clarifying that his wife was upset about a "Fuck Trump" sign. He told Fox News hostShannon Bream that the neighbor blamed him for theJanuary 6 Capitol attack and called his wife a "cunt".[141]
Senior U.S. District JudgeMichael Ponsor of Massachusetts called Alito's flag-flying "improper" in an essay published inThe New York Times.[142][143] Ponsor later apologized after Chief JudgeAlbert Diaz of theU.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit found that his remarks hurt public confidence in the courts by taking issue with Alito's ethics.[142][143]
Alito's first opinion came inHolmes v. South Carolina, No. 04-1327. Following Supreme Court tradition for new justices, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. assigned Alito a unanimous opinion as his first.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is heard questioning whether compromise between the left and right is possible in a conversation posted on social media
Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann Bomgardner, live in West Caldwell, N.J. His sister Rosemary Alito is a labor attorney.
I held Judge Alito's paperwork in my hand.[failed verification]
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| Preceded by | United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey 1987–1990 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Judge of theUnited States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit 1990–2006 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States 2006–present | Incumbent |
| U.S. order of precedence (ceremonial) | ||
| Preceded byas Associate Justice of the Supreme Court | Order of precedence of the United States as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court | Succeeded byas Associate Justice of the Supreme Court |
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