Who is Samuel Anthony Alito Jr.?
A: Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. is an American lawyer and jurist who serves as
an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Who was Alito’s father?
A: Samuel A. Alito Sr., an Italian immigrant.
Who was his mother?
A: Rose Fradusco, an Italian American.
Where did his grandparents come from?
A: Roccella Ionica, Calabria and Palazzo San Gervasio, Basilicata, in
southern Italy.
Where did Alito's father earn a master's degree?
A: At Rutgers University.
He became a high school teacher and later the first
Director of what?
A: The New Jersey Office of Legislative Services, a state government
position he held from 1952 to 1984.
Alito's mother was a what?
A: A schoolteacher.
Where did Alito grow up?
A: In Hamilton Township, New Jersey, a suburb of Trenton.
He attended what high school?
A: Steinert High School where he graduated in 1968 as the class
valedictorian.
He graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude from
where?
A: In Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs.
What was his senior thesis titled?
A: "An Introduction to the Italian Constitutional Court" under the
supervision of Walter F. Murphy.
At Princeton, Alito chaired a student conference in
1971 called what?
A: "The Boundaries of Privacy in American Society".
The conference report called for the decriminalization
of what?
A: Sodomy and urged for an end to discrimination against gays in hiring by
employers.
Alito's name is attached to the chair's report, but it
remains unclear to what extent the report represented what?
A: His personal opinions.
While a sophomore at Princeton, Alito received what
lottery number in the Selective Service drawing on December 1, 1969?
A: 32.
In 1970, he became a member of the school's what?
A: Army ROTC program, attending a six-week basic training camp that year at
Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Alito was commissioned a second lieutenant in the
United States Army Reserve in what year?
A: 1972.
He began his military duty after graduating from what?
A: Law school in 1975.
He served on active duty from September to December
while attending what?
A: The Signal Officer Basic Course at Fort Gordon,
Georgia.
When did he receive his honorable discharge?
A: In 1980.
While at Yale Law School, he served as an editor of
what?
A: Yale Law Journal and earned a Juris Doctor in 1975.
After graduating from law school, Alito clerked for
whom?
A: Third Circuit appeals judge Leonard I. Garth in Newark, New Jersey in
1976 and 1977.
Between 1977 and 1981, Alito was what?
A: Assistant United States Attorney, District of New Jersey.
There he served under who?
A: Chief of the appeals division Assistant U.S. Attorney, later federal
circuit judge, Maryanne Trump Barry.
While an Assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, he
prosecuted many cases involving what?
A: Drug trafficking and organized crime.
From 1981 to 1985, Alito was Assistant to whom?
A: U.S. Solicitor General Rex E. Lee.
How many cases did he argue before the Supreme Court
for the federal government?
A: 12 cases.
How many of the cases he argued before the Supreme
Court did he lose?
A: Alito lost only two.
From 1985 to 1987, Alito was what?
A: Deputy Assistant Attorney General under Charles J. Cooper in the Office
of Legal Counsel.
From 1987 to 1990, Alito was what?
A: The United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey.
In 1989, Alito prosecuted a member of the Japanese Red
Army for planning what?
A: A terrorist bombing in Manhattan.
On February 20, 1990, Bush nominated Alito to what?
A: The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
He was confirmed by unanimous consent in the Senate on
what date?
A: April 27, 1990.
On October 31, Bush announced that he was nominating
Alito to what?
A: O'Connor's seat on the supreme court.
How did democratic Senators characterize Alito?
A: As a hard-right conservative in the mold of Clarence Thomas or Robert
Bork.
After a failed filibuster attempt by Senator John
Kerry, the Senate confirmed Alito to the Supreme Court on what date?
A: January 31 by a vote of 58–42.