Information from Wikipedia.com
Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. (born April 1, 1950) is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. On October 31, 2005, President George W. Bush nominated him to the position of Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, to replace retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
Personal Life
Alito was born in Trenton, New Jersey to Samuel Alito Sr., an Italian immigrant, and Rose Alito. He attended Steinert High School in Hamilton, New Jersey. He graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in 1972, and went to Yale Law School, where he served as editor on the Yale Law Journal and earned a J.D. in 1975. Alito's father, who is now deceased, was the director of the New Jersey Office of Legislative Services from 1952 to 1984. Alito's sister, Rosemary, is regarded as one of New Jersey's top employment lawyers.
In 1972, during the Vietnam War, Alito received a commission in the Army Reserves. He was honorably discharged as a Captain.
Alito and his wife, Martha, live in West Caldwell, New Jersey; they have two children: a son, Philip, who is an undergraduate at the University of Virginia, and a daughter, Laura, who is in high school.
According to the Washington Post, Judge Alito is known as "a studious, diligent, scholarly judge with a first-rate mind and a deadpan sense of humor, a neutral arbiter who does not let personal beliefs affect his legal judgments." [1]
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Career
Alito argued twelve cases before the Supreme Court for the federal government during his tenure as assistant to the Solicitor General. While serving as an attorney for New Jersey, he prosecuted many cases that involved drug trafficking and organized crime. [2]
- 1976 - 1977 - Law clerk for Leonard I. Garth of the Third Circuit.
- 1977 - 1981 - Assistant United States Attorney, District of New Jersey.
- 1981 - 1985 - Assistant to Solicitor General Rex E. Lee.
- 1985 - 1987 - Deputy Assistant to Attorney General Edwin Meese.
- 1987 - 1990 - United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey.
- 1990 - 2005 - Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
- 2002 - 2005 - Adjunct Professor of Law at Seton Hall University School of Law in Newark, New Jersey.
Alito was nominated by George H. W. Bush on February 20, 1990 to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Alito was rated by the American Bar Association as “Well Qualified” at the time of his nomination. He was confirmed unanimously by voice vote in the Senate on April 27, 1990 [3], with Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy commenting at the time that Alito had a "very distinguished record." His chambers are in Newark, New Jersey.
As adjunct professor at Seton Hall University School of Law, Alito has taught courses in Constitutional Law and an original course on terrorism and civil liberties. In 1995, Judge Alito was presented with that law school’s Saint Thomas More Medal, "in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of law." [4]
He is known for his conservative judicial views. In one of his most well-known opinions, he dissented in a 2-1 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1991. In that case, he voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law that required women to inform their husbands before having an abortion, noting that the law allowed certain exceptions, such as an abusive spouse. The Supreme Court struck down the law in 1992. Lawrence Lustberg, a criminal defense attorney and friend of Alito, says that he is "very prosecutorial from the bench. He has looked to be creative in his conservatism, which is, I think, as much a Rehnquist as a Scalia trait." [5]
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