Justice Samuel Alito Trivia Quiz

Answer: New Jersey

Both of Alito's parents were schoolteachers. He was born in Trenton and lived mostly in Hamilton, New Jersey before attending Princeton and Yale. He mentioned in his yearbook that his dream goal was to be on the Supreme Court.

Answer: Limits on intelligence gathering within the United States

Alito led the conference in 1971, which called for limiting the government's ability to collect data on the American people via spying or other similar techniques. It also called for an end to discrimination against LGBT people in job hiring and also to end the ban on sodomy. Typically speaking, these positions are the opposite against traditional conservative ideology that Alito usually aligns with.

However, he is known to have a libertarian streak and libertarians would traditionally support the above positions.

Answer: Byron White

White was also known for having a somewhat conservative attitude while on the Court, although he never identified as such and preferred not to limit himself to one ideology.

Prior to being turned down for a clerkship from White, Alito had clerked for Judge Garth at the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. He later became Assistant U.S. Attorney for New Jersey and then the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey.

Answer: Spousal notification

The case sought to overturn the Pennsylvania Abortion Control Act of 1982. Several regulations were challenged and all were upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals except requiring married women to have the consent of her husband before receiving an abortion. That was considered burdensome to the Fourth Amendment rights of married women. Alito would have upheld that regulation.

The Supreme Court later agreed with the other judges on the panel and upheld the restrictions except for the spousal notification.

Answer: Harriet Miers

Miers was Bush's White House Counsel. At the time of her retirement, it was widely believed and assumed that O'Connor's replacement would be a woman. O'Connor was the first woman appointed to the Court and if she were succeeded by a man, there would only be one woman on the court with eight men.

Miers' nomination was a disaster as she failed to explain her judicial philosophy and apparently did not understand basic constitutional principles. There was a bipartisan effort to block her nomination and she ultimately asked Bush to withdraw her nomination.

Alito was nominated in her place. He faced Democratic opposition as many Democrats believed he was too conservative. Alito was also opposed by the ACLU because the organization believed he was appointed by Bush to uphold some controversial spying and anti-terrorism laws Bush signed. Alito had previously been an advocate against domestic spying, but had upheld some of those laws while as an Appeals Court judge. He was confirmed 58-42, a historically low confirmation vote, though not the lowest.

Answer: In favor of Holmes because he had a right to present evidence to defend himself.

Alito wrote that the ability to present evidence of another person's guilt and of your own innocence is an essential part of a "complete defense" a defendant is entitled to. South Carolina had argued that the prosecution's case was so strong that any evidence to the contrary would have been ineffective and would not raise "a reasonable inference or presumption as to [the defendant's] own innocence." That logic was rejected by the Court.

It is traditional that a justice's first opinion is for a case decided unanimously and one that will probably receive some attention and not a case that would likely be largely ignored at the time and in the future.

Answer: Goodyear

Lily Ledbetter had sued her former employer, Goodyear Tires, for pay discrimination. Ledbetter had discovered she was being paid less at the time of her retirement than male employees who had similar performance records and the same length of employment. She won in trial court, but lost on appeal. Alito and the majority of the Supreme Court found in favor of Goodyear because Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 put a 180-day limit on such pay discrimination claims. Alito said that the 180 period began when the alleged discrimination first occurred, not with subsequent paychecks. He did not rule on whether or not she was discriminated against and wrote that there were other legal remedies that could be used.

The law was later changed and this case was overruled.

Answer: Protesting at military funerals

This case involved the famous Phelps Family of the Westboro Baptist Church, often called America's most hated family. The Phelps had a habit of protesting the funerals of soldiers killed in action and famous people to gain attention for their points of view: that homosexuality is evil. The family of Matthew Snyder sued Phelps after the Westboro Baptist Church picketed Snyder's funeral. The Snyders won in trial court but lost on appeal to the Supreme Court who ruled that public areas, including sidewalks, are open to matters of public discussion. The majority noted that the WBC did not actually protest the memorial service and the Snyder Family did not even know about the protest until they saw it on TV later that night.

Alito wrote a dissenting opinion saying that the protests infringed upon the rights of those grieving and attending the service. He also said that such conduct (not the message) of the protestors was not necessary to have an open discussion about public issues. His lone opinion, fellow justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, was "heartfelt" and said what many people and other justices were thinking and wanted to say but could not rule. Justice John Paul Stevens, a staunch liberal compared to Alito's conservatism, said he would have joined Alito's opinion had he not retired from the Court.

Answer: Glossip v. Gross

Many states were in short supply of the typical drugs used in lethal injections because anti-death penalty European nations would not sell them to prisons any more. Oklahoma switched to midazolam for one of the drugs. Midazolam had been used in a botched execution in April 2014 and Richard Glossip, a death row inmate soon to be executed sued that using the drug was cruel and unusual punishment.

Alito wrote the opinion for a five justice majority against Glossip. Alito noted that since the death penalty is constitutional, there must be a constitutional way to carry it out. Since Glossip failed to provide an alternative, Alito said midazolam must be constitutional. The dissenting Justice Breyer called for a reevaluation of the death penalty while Justice Sonia Sotomayor also dissented, rejecting Alito's argument that a state could execute a prisoner by whatever means necessary even if no humane way existed.

Answer: NSA

The National Security Agency is responsible for surveillance against terrorist threats and gathering intelligence. When Edward Snowden blew the whistle that the agency was spying on Americans. Another whistleblower admitted that Alito and his staff and family were spied when he was first nominated to the Court, and possibly before then.