Samuel Alito

Samuel A. Alito, Jr. has served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States since January 31, 2006. He was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1950, and before joining the Court spent sixteen years as a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and thirteen years in federal prosecutorial and Justice Department posts.

Career Before the Supreme Court

Alito took an A.B. from Princeton University in 1972 and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1975. He clerked for Judge Leonard I. Garth of the Third Circuit in 1976–1977, then served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 1977 to 1981. He moved to the Department of Justice as an Assistant to the Solicitor General from 1981 to 1985 and as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General from 1985 to 1987, and was U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey from 1987 to 1990.

President George H. W. Bush nominated him to the Third Circuit on February 20, 1990. The Senate Judiciary Committee reported the nomination favorably on April 26, 1990, and the Senate confirmed him by voice vote the following day; he was commissioned on April 30, 1990. His Third Circuit service ended on January 31, 2006, when he took the Supreme Court seat.

Supreme Court Nomination and Confirmation

President George W. Bush nominated Alito to the Supreme Court on November 10, 2005. The Senate Judiciary Committee held confirmation hearings from January 9 to January 13, 2006, published as S. Hrg. 109-277. The committee reported the nomination favorably on January 24, 2006, and the Senate confirmed him by a recorded vote of 58 to 42 on January 31, 2006, the same day he received his commission. The American Bar Association rated him “Well Qualified” for both his Third Circuit and his Supreme Court nominations.

Opinions He Wrote for the Court

Three majority opinions authored by Alito account for much of his presence in American political argument. In each, the attribution line in the Court’s own slip opinion identifies him as the author rather than a joining member.

Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. (argued March 25, 2014; decided June 30, 2014). Alito delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Kennedy and Thomas. The Court held that, as applied to closely held corporations, the Department of Health and Human Services regulations imposing the contraceptive mandate violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Justice Ginsburg dissented, joined by Justice Sotomayor and, in part, by Justices Breyer and Kagan.

Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31 (argued February 26, 2018; decided June 27, 2018). Alito delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Kennedy, Thomas and Gorsuch. The Court held that a state’s extraction of agency fees from nonconsenting public-sector employees violates the First Amendment, and overruled Abood v. Detroit Board of Education. Justices Sotomayor and Kagan each filed dissents.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (argued December 1, 2021; decided June 24, 2022). Alito delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett. The syllabus states the holding directly: “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.” Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh filed concurrences; Chief Justice Roberts concurred in the judgment only; Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan filed a joint dissent. The case arose from Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act.

An Opinion He Did Not Write

The distinction between authoring and joining matters, and the record supports drawing it precisely. In Snyder v. Phelps (argued October 6, 2010; decided March 2, 2011), a case about First Amendment protection for picketing at a military funeral, the opinion of the Court was delivered by Chief Justice Roberts and joined by seven other justices. Alito filed the sole dissent. He wrote separately in the minority; he did not write for the Court.

The Dobbs Draft Leak

On May 2, 2022, Politico published a copy of a draft majority opinion in Dobbs. The Court issued a press release the following day stating that “although the document described in yesterday’s reports is authentic, it does not represent a decision by the Court or the final position of any member on the issues in the case,” accompanied by a statement from Chief Justice Roberts. The release did not name the draft’s author.

The Marshal of the Supreme Court published a report of findings on January 19, 2023. It recorded that 82 employees had access to electronic or hard copies of the draft, that investigators interviewed almost 100 employees, and that the team “has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence.” The Court also asked former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to assess the investigation; he advised that the Marshal “undertook a thorough investigation.”

What Is Not Established Here

This page previously carried a stub: true flag and a two-sentence body. The audit expanded it from primary records and removed nothing that was factually wrong — the original claims (Associate Justice since 2006, appointed by George W. Bush, author of Dobbs) all check out against the Court’s own documents and the Federal Judicial Center’s directory.

Several things a reader might expect are deliberately absent because no source meeting this project’s standard was obtained for them:

• No characterization of his jurisprudence or politics. This page describes what he wrote and who joined it. It does not label him.
• Citizens United v. FEC. Alito is often listed among that majority, but no capture of the slip opinion could be retrieved (the live supremecourt.gov path 404s and the Internet Archive has no capture of it), so the composition of that Court is not asserted here.
• The 2010 State of the Union exchange. The reported reaction to President Obama’s remarks about campaign-finance law is documented only in broadcast video and journalism about it; nothing in the first-party record establishes it, so it is omitted.
• The 2024 reporting on flags flown at his residences, his responses to congressional inquiry, and his recusal decisions. The underlying letters are not available from a first-party government source that could be retrieved, and the news accounts sit behind clients this pass cannot fetch. Rather than restate secondhand summaries, the subject is left off the page.
• Personal details — family, religion, residences, honorary degrees, speeches — are not included because they were not independently verified.