Justice Alito

Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. ( ; born April 1, 1950) is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George W. Bush on October 31, 2005, and has served since January 31, 2006. He is the second Italian American justice to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court—after Antonin Scalia—and the eleventh Catholic.

Raised in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, and educated at Princeton University and Yale Law School, Alito served as the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) before joining the Supreme Court. He is the 110th justice.

In 2013, Alito was considered "one of the most conservative justices on the Court". Granick, Jennifer and Sprigman, Christopher (June 27, 2013
"The Criminal N.S.A."
, ''The New York Times'' He has described himself as a "practical originalist". Alito's majority opinions in landmark cases include ''McDonald v. Chicago'', ''Burwell v. Hobby Lobby'', ''Murphy v. NCAA'', '' Janus v. AFSCME'', and ''Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization''.

Biography

Early life and education

Alito was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Samuel A. Alito Sr., an Italian immigrant, and Rose Fradusco, an Italian-American. His grandparents came from Roccella Ionica, Calabria and Palazzo San Gervasio, Basilicata, in southern Italy. Alito's father earned a master's degree at Rutgers 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. Both are deceased.

Alito grew up in Hamilton Township, New Jersey, a suburb of Trenton. He attended Steinert High School where he graduated in 1968 as the class valedictorian, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and ''summa cum laude'' from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs in 1972, completing a senior thesis titled "An Introduction to the Italian Constitutional Court" under the supervision of Walter F. Murphy.

At Princeton, Alito chaired a student conference in 1971 called "The Boundaries of Privacy in American Society" which, among other things, supported curbs on domestic intelligence gathering and anticipated the need for a statute and a court to oversee national security surveillance. The conference report itself also called for the decriminalization of sodomy, and urged for an end to discrimination against gays in hiring by employers. "Though Alito's name is attached to the chair's report, it remains unclear to what extent the report represented his personal opinions. Alumni, who served as 'commissioners' for the junior conference Alito chaired, offered conflicting information on how best to interpret the report." Alito also led the American Whig-Cliosophic Society's Debate Panel during his time at Princeton. He avoided Princeton's eating clubs, joining Stevenson Hall instead.

While a sophomore at Princeton, Alito received a low lottery number, 32, in the Selective Service drawing on December 1, 1969.The washington Post (November 3, 2005
"Alito Joined ROTC While at Princeton"
. In 1970, he became a member of the school's Army ROTC program, attending a six-week basic training camp that year at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Alito was a member of the Concerned Alumni of Princeton, which was formed in October 1972 at least in part to oppose Princeton's decisions regarding admitting women. Apart from Alito's written 1985 statement of membership in CAP on a job application, which he says was truthful, there is no other documentation of Alito's involvement with or contributions to the group. Alito has cited the banning and subsequent treatment of ROTC by the university as his reason for belonging to CAP.

Alito was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United 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 the Signal Officer Basic Course at Fort Gordon, Georgia. Alito was promoted to first lieutenant and captain, and completed his service obligation as a member of the inactive reserve before receiving his honorable discharge in 1980.

At Princeton, Alito was "almost alone" in his familiarity with the writings of John Marshall Harlan IIBernstein, Mark F. (2006
"A Tiger on the Court: Sam Alito ’72 at Princeton,"
''Princeton Alumni Weekly'', March 8. Retrieved June 2, 2017. and was much influenced by the course on constitutional interpretation taught by Walter F. Murphy, also his faculty adviser. 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. Graduating in 1972, Alito left a sign of his lofty aspirations in his yearbook, which said that he hoped to "eventually warm a seat on the Supreme Court".Alito has a record of steady conservatism, reputation for civility
", ''Chicago Tribune'', October 31, 2005.

Alito then attended Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the ''Yale Law Journal'' and earned a Juris Doctor in 1975.

Early legal career

After graduating from law school, Alito clerked for Third Circuit appeals judge Leonard I. Garth in Newark, New Jersey