who are the current supreme court justices?

Answer 1

John Roberts
John Paul Stevens
Antonin Scalia
Anthony Kennedy
David Souter
Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Stephen Breyer
Samuel Alito

Answer 2

The Justices of the Supreme Court

John G. Roberts, Jr., Chief Justice of the United States, was born in Buffalo, New
York, January 27, 1955. He married Jane Marie Sullivan in 1996; they have two children -
Josephine and John. He received an A.B. from Harvard College in 1976 and a J.D. from
Harvard Law School in 1979. He served as a law clerk for Henry J. Friendly of the United
States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1979–1980 and as a law clerk for then-
Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist of the Supreme Court of the United States during
the 1980 Term. He was Special Assistant to the Attorney General, U.S. Department of
Justice from 1981–1982, Associate Counsel to President Ronald Reagan, White House
Counsel’s Office from 1982–1986, and Principal Deputy Solicitor General, U.S. Department
of Justice from 1989–1993. From 1986–1989 and 1993–2003, he practiced law in Washing-
ton, D.C. He was appointed to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of
Columbia Circuit in 2003. President George W. Bush nominated him as Chief Justice of
the United States, and he took his seat on September 29, 2005.
* * *
John Paul Stevens, Associate Justice, was born in Chicago, Illinois, April 20, 1920.
He married Maryan Mulholland, and has four children - John Joseph (deceased), Kathryn,
Elizabeth Jane, and Susan Roberta. He received an A.B. from the University of Chicago,
and a J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law. He served in the United States
Navy from 1942–1945, and was a law clerk to Justice Wiley Rutledge of the Supreme Court
of the United States during the 1947 Term. He was admitted to law practice in Illinois in
1949. He was Associate Counsel to the Subcommittee on the Study of Monopoly Power of
the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, 1951–1952, and a member
of the Attorney General’s National Committee to Study Antitrust Law, 1953–1955. He was
Second Vice President of the Chicago Bar Association in 1970. From 1970–1975, he served
as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. President Ford
nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat Decem-
ber 19, 1975.
* * *
Antonin Scalia, Associate Justice, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, March 11, 1936.
He married Maureen McCarthy and has nine children - Ann Forrest, Eugene, John Francis,
Catherine Elisabeth, Mary Clare, Paul David, Matthew, Christopher James, and Margaret
Jane. He received his A.B. from Georgetown University and the University of Fribourg,
Switzerland, and his LL.B. from Harvard Law School, and was a Sheldon Fellow of Har-
vard University from 1960–1961. He was in private practice in Cleveland, Ohio from 1961–
1967, a Professor of Law at the University of Virginia from 1967–1971, and a Professor of
Law at the University of Chicago from 1977–1982, and a Visiting Professor of Law at
Georgetown University and Stanford University. He was chairman of the American Bar
Association’s Section of Administrative Law, 1981–1982, and its Conference of Section
Chairmen, 1982–1983. He served the federal government as General Counsel of the Office
of Telecommunications Policy from 1971–1972, Chairman of the Administrative Conference
of the United States from 1972–1974, and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of
Legal Counsel from 1974–1977. He was appointed Judge of the United States Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in 1982. President Reagan nominated him as
an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat September 26, 1986.
* * *
Anthony M. Kennedy, Associate Justice, was born in Sacramento, California, July
23, 1936. He married Mary Davis and has three children. He received his B.A. from
Stanford University and the London School of Economics, and his LL.B. from Harvard Law
School. He was in private practice in San Francisco, California from 1961–1963, as well as
in Sacramento, California from 1963–1975. From 1965 to 1988, he was a Professor of
Constitutional Law at the McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. He has
served in numerous positions during his career, including a member of the California Army
National Guard in 1961, the board of the Federal Judicial Center from 1987–1988, and two
committees of the Judicial Conference of the United States: the Advisory Panel on Finan-
cial Disclosure Reports and Judicial Activities, subsequently renamed the Advisory Com-
mittee on Codes of Conduct, from 1979–1987, and the Committee on Pacific Territories from
1979–1990, which he chaired from 1982–1990. He was appointed to the United States
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 1975. President Reagan nominated him as an
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat February 18, 1988.
* * *
David Hackett Souter, Associate Justice, was born in Melrose, Massachusetts,
September 17, 1939. He was graduated from Harvard College, from which he received
his A.B. After two years as a Rhodes Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, he received an
A.B. in Jurisprudence from Oxford University and an M.A. in 1989. After receiving
an LL.B. from Harvard Law School, he was an associate at Orr and Reno in Concord,
New Hampshire from 1966 to 1968, when he became an Assistant Attorney General of New
Hampshire. In 1971, he became Deputy Attorney General and in 1976, Attorney General of
New Hampshire. In 1978, he was named an Associate Justice of the Superior Court of New
Hampshire, and was appointed to the Supreme Court of New Hampshire as an Associate
Justice in 1983. He became a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First
Circuit on May 25, 1990. President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court, and he took his seat October 9, 1990.
* * *
Clarence Thomas, Associate Justice, was born in the Pin Point community of Georgia
near Savannah June 23, 1948. He married Virginia Lamp in 1987 and has one child, Jamal
Adeen, by a previous marriage. He attended Conception Seminary and received an A.B.,
*** laude, from Holy Cross College, and a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1974. He was
admitted to law practice in Missouri in 1974, and served as an Assistant Attorney General
of Missouri from 1974–1977, an attorney with the Monsanto Company from 1977–1979, and
Legislative Assistant to Senator John Danforth from 1979–1981. From 1981–1982, he
served as Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, and as
Chairman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from 1982–1990. He
became a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
in 1990. President Bush nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and
he took his seat October 23, 1991.
* * *
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice, was born in Brooklyn, New York, March
15, 1933. She married Martin D. Ginsburg in 1954, and has a daughter, Jane, and a son,
James. She received her B.A. from Cornell University, attended Harvard Law School, and
received her LL.B. from Columbia Law School. She served as a law clerk to the Honorable
Edmund L. Palmieri, Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of
New York, from 1959–1961. From 1961–1963, she was a research associate and then
associate director of the Columbia Law School Project on International Procedure. She was
a Professor of Law at Rutgers University School of Law from 1963–1972, and Columbia
Law School from 1972–1980, and a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behav-
ioral Sciences in Stanford, California from 1977–1978. In 1971, she was instrumental in
launching the Women’s Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union, and served as
the ACLU’s General Counsel from 1973–1980, and on the National Board of Directors from
1974–1980. She was appointed a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the
District of Columbia Circuit in 1980. President Clinton nominated her as an Associate
Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat August 10, 1993.
* * *
Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice, was born in San Francisco, California, August
15, 1938. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children - Chloe, Nell, and
Michael. He received an A.B. from Stanford University, a B.A. from Magdalen College,
Oxford, and an LL.B. from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur
Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 Term, as a Special
Assistant to the Assistant U.S. Attorney General for Antitrust, 1965–1967, as an Assistant
Special Prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, 1973, as Special Counsel of
the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, 1974–1975, and as Chief Counsel of the committee,
1979–1980. He was an Assistant Professor, Professor of Law, and Lecturer at Harvard Law
School, 1967–1994, a Professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government,
1977–1980, and a Visiting Professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the
University of Rome. From 1980–1990, he served as a Judge of the United States Court of
Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its Chief Judge, 1990–1994. He also served as a
member of the Judicial Conference of the United States, 1990–1994, and of the United
States Sentencing Commission, 1985–1989. President Clinton nominated him as an Asso-
ciate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994.
* * *
Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., Associate Justice, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, April
1, 1950. He married Martha-Ann Bomgardner in 1985, and has two children - Philip and
Laura. He received an A.B. from Princeton University in 1972 and a J.D. from Yale Law
School in 1975. He served as a law clerk for Leonard I. Garth of the United States Court of
Appeals for the Third Circuit from 1976–1977. He was Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of
New Jersey, 1977–1981, Assistant to the Solicitor General, U.S. Department of Justice, 1981–
1985, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, U.S. Department of Justice, 1985–1987, and U.S.
Attorney, District of New Jersey, 1987–1990. He was appointed to the United States Court of
Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1990. President George W. Bush nominated him as an
Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat on January 31, 2006.
* * *
Sandra Day O’Connor (Retired), Associate Justice, was born in El Paso, Texas,
March 26, 1930. She married John Jay O’Connor III in 1952 and has three sons - Scott,
Brian, and Jay. She received her B.A. and LL.B. from Stanford University. She served as
Deputy County Attorney of San Mateo County, California from 1952–1953 and as a civilian
attorney for Quartermaster Market Center, Frankfurt, Germany from 1954–1957. From
1958–1960, she practiced law in Maryvale, Arizona, and served as Assistant Attorney
General of Arizona from 1965–1969. She was appointed to the Arizona State Senate in 1969
and was subsequently reelected to two two-year terms. In 1975 she was elected Judge of
the Maricopa County Superior Court and served until 1979, when she was appointed to the
Arizona Court of Appeals. President Reagan nominated her as an Associate Justice of the
Supreme Court, and she took her seat September 25, 1981. Justice O’Connor retired from
the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006.
[The foregoing was taken from a booklet prepared by the Supreme Court of the United States,
and published with funding from the Supreme Court Historical Society.]