Friday July 30, 2010



supreme court justices

The Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest judicial body in the United States, and leads the federal judiciary. It consists of the Chief Justice of the United States and eight Associate Justices, who are nominated by the President and confirmed with the “advice and consent” (majority vote) of the Senate. Once appointed, Justices effectively have life tenure, serving “during good Behavior”, which terminates only upon death, resignation, retirement, or conviction on impeachment. The Court meets in Washington, D.C. in the United States Supreme Court building. The Supreme Court is primarily an appellate court, but it has original jurisdiction over a small range of cases.

We encourage you to pray for these leaders by name.

United States Supreme Court Justices

John Paul Stevens (born April 20, 1920) is the senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He joined the Supreme Court in 1975 and is the oldest member of the Court. He was appointed to the Court by Republican President Gerald Ford. Stevens is widely considered to be on the liberal side of the court. Ford praised Stevens in 2005: “He is serving his nation well, with dignity, intellect and without partisan political concerns.” He is also the only current Justice to have served with three Chief Justices (Warren E. Burger, William Rehnquist, and John G. Roberts).

Assumed Office: December 19, 1975




Antonin Gregory Scalia (born March 11, 1936) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan having previously served on the D.C. Circuit and in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and teaching law at the Universities of Virginia and Chicago. He is considered to be a core member of the conservative wing of the court, vigorously advancing textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation.

Assumed Office: September 26, 1986



Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, having been appointed by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1988. Since the retirement of Sandra Day O’Connor, Kennedy is often considered the swing vote on many of the Court’s politically charged 5–4 decisions, although he reaches conservative results more often than not.

Assumed Office: February 18, 1988






Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, having served since 1991. Justice Thomas is the second African American to serve on the nation’s highest court, after Justice Thurgood Marshall, whom he succeeded.

Thomas grew up in Georgia, and was educated at the College of the Holy Cross and at Yale Law School. In 1974, he was appointed an Assistant Attorney General in Missouri (primarily handling tax matters), and subsequently practiced law there in the private sector. In 1979, he became a legislative assistant to Missouri Senator John Danforth, and in 1981 was appointed as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. In 1982 Thomas was appointed Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and he served in that position until 1990 when President George H. W. Bush nominated him for a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The advice and consent of the United States Senate was needed to approve the nomination, and it was easily obtained.

Since joining the Court, Thomas is noted for asking few questions during oral argument of the cases; he has stated that he prefers to listen. Thomas has taken an originalist approach to judging, seeking to uphold what he sees as the original meaning of the Constitution and statutes. Moreover, he has often approached federalism issues in a way that limits the power of the federal government and expands power of state and local governments. At the same time, Thomas’ opinions have generally supported a strong executive branch within the federal government.

Assumed Office: October 19, 1991



Ruth Joan Bader Ginsburg (born March 15, 1933) is an Associate Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. Ginsburg was appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton with the support of Republican Judiciary Chairman Senator Orrin Hatch in 1993 and generally votes with the liberal wing of the court. She is the second female Justice — Sandra Day O’Connor being the first — and the first Jewish woman to serve on the Court.

Ginsburg spent a considerable portion of her career as an advocate for the equal citizenship status of women and men as a constitutional principle. She engaged in advocacy as a volunteer lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, and was a member of its board of directors and one of its general counsel in the 1970s. She served as a professor at Rutgers School of Law—Newark and Columbia Law School. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed her to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Assumed Office: August 10, 1993



Stephen Gerald Breyer (born August 15, 1938) is an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1994, and known for his pragmatic approach to constitutional law, Breyer is generally associated with the more liberal side of the Court.

Following a clerkship with Supreme Court Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg in 1964, Breyer became well-known as a law professor and lecturer at Harvard Law School starting in 1967. There he specialized in the area of administrative law, writing a number of influential text books that remain in use today. He held other prominent positions before being nominated for the Supreme Court, including special assistant to the United States Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, and assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force in 1973.

Assumed Office: August 3, 1994



Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr. (born April 1, 1950) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was appointed by President George W. Bush and has served on the court since January 31, 2006.

Raised in Hamilton Township, New Jersey and educated at Princeton University and Yale Law School, Alito served as U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey and a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit prior to joining the Supreme Court. He is the 110th justice and the second Italian American to serve on the court. Alito is generally considered a fairly conservative jurist with a libertarian streak (especially on First Amendment issues related to religious affairs).

Assumed Office: January 31, 2006



John Glover Roberts, Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is the 17th and current Chief Justice of the United States. He has served since 2005, having been nominated by President George W. Bush after the death of former Chief Justice William Rehnquist. He is usually considered to be a judicial conservative.

Roberts grew up in northern Indiana and was educated in a private boarding school before attending Harvard College and Harvard Law School where he was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. After being admitted to the bar, he served as a law clerk for William Rehnquist before taking a position in the Attorney General’s office during the Reagan Administration. He went on to serve the Reagan Administration and the George H. W. Bush administration in the Department of Justice and the Office of the White House Counsel, before spending fourteen years in private law practice. During this time, he argued thirty-nine cases before the Supreme Court.

In 2003, he was appointed as a judge of the D.C. Circuit by President George W. Bush, where he served until his nomination to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. When Chief Justice Rehnquist died before Roberts’s confirmation hearings, Bush renominated Roberts to fill the newly vacant center seat.

Assumed Office: September 29, 2005



Sonia Sotomayor (born June 25, 1954) is an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, serving since August 2009. Sotomayor is the Court’s 111th justice, its first Hispanic justice, and its third female justice.

Sotomayor was born in The Bronx, New York City and is of Puerto Rican descent. Her father died when she was nine, and she was subsequently raised by her mother. Sotomayor graduated with an A.B., summa cum laude, from Princeton University in 1976 and received her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1979, where she was an editor at the Yale Law Journal. She was an advocate for the hiring of Latino faculty at both schools. She worked as an assistant district attorney in New York for five years before entering private practice in 1984. She played an active role on the boards of directors for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, the State of New York Mortgage Agency, and the New York City Campaign Finance Board.

Sotomayor was nominated to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York by President George H. W. Bush in 1991, and her nomination was confirmed in 1992. In 1997, she was nominated by President Bill Clinton to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and she was confirmed in 1998. On the Second Circuit, Sotomayor heard appeals in more than 3,000 cases and wrote about 380 opinions. Sotomayor has taught at the New York University School of Law and Columbia Law School.

In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Sotomayor for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court to replace retired Justice David Souter. Her nomination was confirmed by the United States Senate in August 2009 by a vote of 68–31.

Assumed Office: August 6, 2009