Who is Samuel Alito? Conservative justice from N.J. long opposed Roe v. Wade. – NJ.com

A Supreme Court justice from New Jersey is now apparently poised to re-write history.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who grew up in Hamilton and raised a family in West Caldwell, prosecuted mobsters as the state’s U.S. Attorney, and served as a Reagan Administration lawyer. He has been named as the author of a leaked draft opinion from the high court that would overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case that legalized abortion nationwide.

That draft, published Monday night by Politico, indicated that the court had already voted privately to throw out the landmark decision.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Politico said Alito writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.”

According to the draft obtained by the news organization, Alito went on to say: “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

The news was no surprise to many who opposed his confirmation as a justice — despite his assertions at the time that he had no pre-determined positions on the issue. Indeed, he had told the Senate Judiciary Committee at his confirmation hearings in 2006 that Supreme Court justices must respect the opinions of previous courts and the power of the executive and legislative branches of government.

In a 64-page response to a questionnaire from the panel, Alito said the courts “must engage in a constant process of self-discipline to ensure that they respect the limits of their authority.”

Yet in earlier writings, he said he believed the decision by the court had been wrong.

Alito, 72, was born in Trenton. He attended Princeton University where the late Walter F. Murphy, a constitutional scholar, would later recall him as an undergraduate who could “quickly and succinctly summarize both sides of an argument” and give a reasoned opinion.

“It was like listening to a great judge,” said Murphy in an interview after Alito was nominated by President George W. Bush to succeed Justice Sandra Day O’Connor — a nomination that came after the previous nominee, White House counsel Harriet Miers, ran into strong opposition from conservatives, forcing her to withdraw from consideration.

Murphy, who died in 2010, had been Alito’s college thesis adviser and predicted back then that Alito would one day be a famous judge.

He described Alito as someone who respected judicial precedent.

“He’s basically a conservative person. He doesn’t sit back and say, ‘If I had to remake the world, here’s how I’d do it,’” Murphy told the Associated Press in a 2005 interview.

Alito went on to law school at Yale University.

His mother, Rose, was a schoolteacher, and his father, Sam, was the head of the nonpartisan agency in Trenton that helps state lawmakers write legislation. In preparation for his hearings after his nomination to the court, Alito told The Star-Ledger that upon learning that one newspaper had been working on a story about his family’s entry to the United States from Italy, the staff working on his nomination hired its own professional genealogist to study the family’s roots. He said he soon learned his father and grandmother came into the country through Philadelphia on a ship later sunk by a U-boat.

Alito came to Washington in the 1980s to work in the Solicitor General’s Office, where he wrote legal briefs and argued cases before the Supreme Court. Later, the young attorney was promoted to the Office of Legal Counsel, where he gave legal advice to executive-branch agencies — among a group of young and conservative attorneys who sought to curb what they saw as the liberal judicial activism epitomized by the Warren Court. Among his arguments was that federal authorities should be exempt from lawsuits for conducting warrantless wiretaps.

At the same time, they looked to put conservatives like themselves on the bench. They fought court decisions that permitted school busing and affirmative action as well as rulings that barred school prayer. Their targets included rules recognizing abortion rights.

In a 1985 application for a Justice Department promotion, Alito wrote he personally believed “the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion” and that he opposed affirmative action.

Later, Alito was named U.S. attorney for New Jersey.

Working out of the federal office building in Newark, he could often be seen at the T.M. Ward Coffee Co. on Broad Street, which would name his favorite brew for him — “Bold Justice,” a mix of dark Papua New Guinea, Celebs Kalossi, Java, Italian Roast and espresso beans concocted for him one year as a surprise birthday gift.

He joined the federal appeals court in 1990.

Married with two children, he and his wife, Martha-Ann Alito, a former librarian, raised their family in West Caldwell. In fact, long after Alito joined the U.S. Supreme Court, the family stayed behind in the Essex County suburb so his daughter could finish her senior year at James Caldwell High School. Every weekend, he left the nation’s capital and headed back home to New Jersey.

During his confirmation hearings, Alito stated that he had great respect for the 1973 Roe. vs. Wade precedent legalizing abortion. But he refused to commit to upholding it in the future.

In his response to the Justice Committee’s questionnaire, he wrote that members of the high court were not subject to the vagaries of politics and the approval of the electorate. Justices, he said, must therefore police their own behavior.

“Judges must be appropriately modest in their estimation of their own abilities; they must respect the judgments reached by predecessors; and they must be sensibly cautious about the scope of their decisions,” he said.

At the same time, Alito said, the court should not hesitate to take dramatic action when constitutional violations are proven.

“Some of the finest chapters in the history of the federal courts have been written when federal judges, despite resistance, have steadfastly enforced remedies for deeply rooted constitutional violations,” he wrote.

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Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL