Samuel Alito v. The Press

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006 and is known as one of the most conservative justices to serve on the court in modern times.

The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court sit for their official photograph on October 8, 2010, at the Supreme Court. Front row, from left: Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Anthony M. Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Back row, from left: Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito Jr. and Elena Kagan.

In 2005, Chief Justice John G. Roberts was nominated by President George W. Bush to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor as an associate justice. After Chief Justice William Rehnquist died, however, Bush named Roberts to the chief justice post. The court has moved to the right during his tenure, although Roberts supplied the key vote to uphold President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.

Justice Antonin Scalia was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986 to fill the seat vacated by Justice William Rehnquist when he was elevated to chief justice. A constitutional originalist -- and a colorful orator -- Scalia is a member of the court's conservative wing. He is currently the court's longest-serving justice.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy was appointed to the court by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. He is a conservative justice but has provided crucial swing votes in many cases, writing the majority opinion, for example, in Lawrence v. Texas, which struck down that state's sodomy law.

Justice Clarence Thomas is the second African-American to serve on the court, succeeding Justice Thurgood Marshall when he was appointed by President George H. W. Bush in 1991. He is a conservative, a strict constructionist who supports states' rights.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is the second woman to serve on the Supreme Court. Appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1993, she is a strong voice in the court's liberal minority.

Justice Stephen G. Breyer was appointed to the court in 1994 by President Bill Clinton. He is considered a member of the court's liberal minority.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor is the court's first Hispanic and third female justice. She was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2009 and is regarded as a resolutely liberal member of the court.

Justice Elena Kagan is the fourth female justice and a member of the court's liberal wing. She was appointed in 2010, at the age of 50, by President Barack Obama and is the court's youngest member.

• Alito spoke at the New York Historical Society


• Alito shared his thoughts about the press


• Alito: Some columns are 'written by people who are not very knowledgeable'

(CNN) -- Sam Alito doesn't have "any complaints" about the press corps who cover the Supreme Court -- but the Associate Justice could do without "incredibly snarky" columnists.

"Some of the columns that are written, you know, are another story," Alito said, in a rare public lecture on Constitutional history and law presented by the New York Historical Society on Saturday. "Some of them are written by people who are not very knowledgeable."

Alito took particular issue with a New Republic column critical of the cloistered culture of the Court.

"I was reading one, actually, reading one this morning that was complaining about the current membership of the Court, because unlike in past days, according to this columnist, we don't have a representation of drunks, philanderers, and a few, you know, a few other n'er do wells."

The column - entitled "Yale, Harvard, Yale, Harvard, Yale, Harvard, Harvard, Harvard, Columbia" - argues "while we have gained diversity of background, we haven't gained diversity of experience" and was penned November 13 by Dahlia Lithwick, a senior editor at Slate and regular Court watcher for the past 15 years.

"The current justices are intellectually qualified in ways we have never seen," Lithwick wrote.

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"Compared with the political operators, philanderers, and alcoholics of bygone eras, they are almost completely devoid of bad habits or scandalous secrets. This is, of course, not a bad thing."

American legal scholar and Yale University professor Akhil Reed Amar, who moderated the discussion and referred to Alito by his first name throughout the event, politely described the column as "interesting", and quickly moved on to other topics.

Alito was more forgiving of the regular Supreme Court press corps.

"We have a corps of journalists who are perm -- that, their full time job is to cover the Supreme Court. They're very knowledgeable, there are probably ten or so of them. The New York Times, Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, Los Angeles Times, Bloomberg, I'm missing some but there are, there are -- they cover us full time. They are very knowledgeable and I think that their news stories about oral arguments and decisions when they come out are pretty good."

But he couldn't resist at least one jab.

"One of the interesting aspects of my job is that every once in a while we have a chance to compare notes with judges from other supreme courts or constitutional courts in other countries. And we had a visit a few years ago by justices from the Canadian Supreme Court. They, they told us that they do not have journalists like that," Alito said.

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"Because there journalists were, the people who wrote opinions about their decisions cover lots of other things, they, they didn't think that they were that knowledgable. So they devised this procedure that's called either a lock up or a lock down, I've forgotten which one. They will invite the journalists who may be interested in the, in a decision that's coming down to go into a little room just before the opinion is announced. And before they go in they take away all their electronic communications devices and then they lock the door and someone on the staff of the Court explains the decision to these, these journalists. And when they told me this story, they told us this story, I thought it was a really good idea. Until I heard that at the end of this process, they open the door and they actually let them out."

The New York City crowd laughed heartily.

"That's a joke, that's a joke," Alito interjected.

"That will make the papers tomorrow," said the moderator.

Alito, at ease and clearly comfortable in the free flowing discussion, made few controversial remarks - unless you're Canadian.

"It has occurred to me that we American judges have the most boring robes of any judiciary anywhere in the world. Believe it or not - there's a website for everything - there's a website, you can check this," Alito said.

"If you have nothing else to do, you can compare and we are, we are the plainest, just the plain black robes," Alito continued. "Everywhere else they have colors, they have fur, they have medals. The Supreme Court of Canada...to me, their robes look like they're dressed up like Santa Claus. Have you seen them? They have red robes and they have white fur around."

Indeed, a cursory but by no means exhaustive investigation by CNN returned a website - www.jjmccullough.com -- on which judicial robes of the world, including those seemingly inspired by Kris Kringle, were featured.

Alito - who perhaps is best known to the public as the justice who mouthed the words "not true" as President Obama criticized the Citizens United decision during the 2010 State of the Union - need not worry about any blowback from his public comments.

Supreme Court justices are appointed for life.

"I think life tenure is a great idea," Alito joked at the opening of the law lecture. "I think the reason is that we have the oldest Constitution in the world and in the late 18th century they counted on biology taking care of the problem."