Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1950, the son of an Italian immigrant, and built a career as a federal prosecutor, a Reagan Justice Department lawyer, and, for fifteen years, a judge on the Third Circuit, where his consistent conservatism earned him the nickname 'Scalito' for his affinity with Justice Scalia (§103). George W. Bush named him to the Supreme Court in 2006 to succeed the pivotal Sandra Day O'Connor (§102), a replacement that shifted the Court measurably to the right.
Alito is the intellectual anchor of the Court's conservative wing and the author of its most far-reaching modern decision. Where Chief Justice Roberts (§109) hesitates over the Court's image, Alito is the unapologetic conservative — combative in dissent, expansive on religious liberty and gun rights, skeptical of abortion and racial preferences. In Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization he wrote the opinion overruling Roe v. Wade and ending the constitutional right to abortion after nearly half a century, declaring Roe 'egregiously wrong from the start.' He earlier wrote Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, exempting religious employers from the contraceptive mandate, and McDonald v. Chicago, extending the Second Amendment against the states. He continues to serve.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
2022Holding · The Constitution confers no right to abortion; Roe was 'egregiously wrong from the start,' and the question returns to the states.
Role · Alito wrote for the Court.
The most consequential decision of the twenty-first century so far — the culmination of a fifty-year campaign to overturn Roe.
Read the opinion →Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores
2014Holding · Closely held for-profit corporations with religious objections may opt out of the contraceptive-coverage requirement under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Role · Alito wrote for the Court.
A landmark of the modern religious-liberty expansion, extending conscience protections to businesses.
Read the opinion →McDonald v. City of Chicago
2010Holding · The Second Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause.
Role · Alito wrote the plurality opinion.
Carried Heller (§103) to the states, a foundational piece of the modern gun-rights architecture later extended in Bruen (§106).
Read the opinion →Samuel Alito is the intellectual anchor of the Supreme Court's conservative wing and the author of its most far-reaching modern decision — Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which in 2022 overruled Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to abortion after nearly half a century. A former Reagan-administration lawyer, federal prosecutor, and appeals-court judge nicknamed 'Scalito' for his affinity with Antonin Scalia (§103), he was appointed by George W. Bush in 2006 to replace the pivotal Sandra Day O'Connor (§102), shifting the Court measurably to the right. Where Roberts (§109) hesitates over the Court's image, Alito is the unapologetic conservative — combative in dissent, expansive on religious liberty and gun rights, skeptical of abortion and racial preferences. He wrote Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, exempting closely held religious employers from the contraception mandate, and McDonald v. Chicago, extending the Second Amendment against the states. He has no full biography; his jurisprudence is best approached through his opinions and the literature on the conservative majority he helped build. Begin with Joan Biskupic's account of that majority, then read Dobbs and the religious-liberty and gun cases.
The Bookshelf
The best single account of the conservative supermajority Alito helped build and now anchors, and the natural entry point given the absence of an Alito biography. Biskupic draws on interviews and reporting to reconstruct the internal maneuvering behind Dobbs and the other blockbuster rulings, with Alito a central figure. Fair-minded but pointed, it places his uncompromising conservatism in the context of the Court's rapid rightward turn after 2020, and it is the best available portrait of the justice at work. William Morrow.
The most consequential decision of the twenty-first century so far, and the culmination of a fifty-year campaign. Writing for the Court, Alito held that the Constitution confers no right to abortion — Roe was 'egregiously wrong from the start,' he wrote — and returned the question to the states, sweeping away Roe (§98) and Casey (§102). Hailed by opponents of abortion as a historic correction and condemned by supporters as a stripping-away of settled liberty, it transformed American law and politics overnight. Read it, and the joint dissent, as the defining constitutional rupture of the era, and judge its reasoning about history and precedent for yourself.
A landmark of the modern religious-liberty expansion. Alito held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act allowed closely held for-profit corporations with religious objections to opt out of the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive-coverage requirement. Praised as a vindication of conscience and criticized as extending religious rights to corporations at the expense of employees, it marked a major turn in the collision between anti-discrimination and regulatory law and claims of faith — a collision that has only grown since. Read it as the fullest statement of Alito's expansive view of religious exemption.
The decision that carried Heller (§103) to the states. Two years after the Court recognized an individual right to bear arms against the federal government, Alito's plurality held that the Second Amendment applies to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause — making the right to keep a handgun for self-defense enforceable nationwide. A foundational piece of the modern gun-rights architecture later extended in Bruen (§106), it shows Alito building the conservative constitutional edifice case by case. Read it as the bridge between Heller and today's Second Amendment law.
The first full-length Alito biography, published in April 2026 — written with clear sympathy (Hemingway is a Federalist editor and co-author of the Kavanaugh book on his colleague's shelf), which readers should weigh; a critical or scholarly life does not yet exist. Until one does, this is the book of record on the author of Dobbs. Basic Liberty.
Two New York Times reporters' deeply sourced history of the movement that ended Roe — with Alito as the justice who wrote the opinion and weathered the leak. The Dobbs context a sympathetic biography won't supply; read the two against each other. Flatiron Books.
The Reading Path
A researched route through the literature — in order.
- 1.Biskupic, Nine Black Robes — for the conservative majority he anchors, and how it works
- 2.Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Org. — for the decision that overruled Roe, in his own hand
- 3.Burwell v. Hobby Lobby — for his expansive view of religious liberty
- 4.McDonald v. City of Chicago — for the Second Amendment carried to the states
Where the Papers Are Kept
Alito continues to serve, and his judicial papers are not open to researchers. His jurisprudence is documented in the Court's published opinions, and the internal deliberations of his era survive for now chiefly in reporting and in colleagues' open collections at the Library of Congress. His earlier career is documented in the Reagan-administration records at the National Archives, which include his memoranda as a Justice Department lawyer. The Federal Judicial Center and Oyez provide the biographical and case record. Visit →
Ideas for Further Research
- The end of Roe. Dobbs undid a precedent that had stood for forty-nine years and had been expressly reaffirmed in Casey. Study Alito's treatment of stare decisis — his argument that some precedents are so 'egregiously wrong' they must go — against the reliance interests and institutional-stability concerns the dissent emphasized, and ask what Dobbs implies for the durability of other long-settled rights the same reasoning might reach.
- Religious liberty ascendant. From Hobby Lobby onward, Alito has been the Court's leading voice for expansive protection of religious exercise, often where it collides with anti-discrimination law or regulatory schemes. Trace the arc of the religious-liberty cases he has shaped, and ask how courts should mediate between sincere claims of conscience and the competing rights of third parties — employees, customers, and the public — that exemptions can burden.
- The justice and the ethics debate. Alito has been at the center of recent controversies over the Court's ethics — reporting of gifts and travel, flags flown at his homes, and questions of recusal — that have fueled calls for a binding code of conduct. Examine the arguments on all sides about judicial ethics and accountability at the Supreme Court, and ask what mechanisms, if any, can secure public confidence without compromising judicial independence. Seat lineage: Sandra Day O'Connor §102 → Samuel Alito → (still serving).