45 Facts About John Roberts

1.

John Roberts has been described as having a conservative judicial philosophy though is primarily an institutionalist.

2.

John Roberts has shown a willingness to work with the Supreme Court's liberal bloc, and, from the retirement of Anthony Kennedy in 2018 to the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2020, he had been regarded as the primary swing vote on the Court.

3.

John Roberts studied history at Harvard University and then attended Harvard Law School, where he was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review.

4.

John Roberts served as a law clerk for Circuit Judge Henry Friendly and then-associate justice William Rehnquist before taking a position in the attorney general's office during the Reagan Administration.

5.

John Roberts's father had Irish and Welsh ancestry, and his mother was a descendant of Slovak immigrants from Szepes, Hungary.

6.

John Roberts has an elder sister, Kathy, and two younger sisters: Peggy and Barbara.

7.

John Roberts spent his early childhood years in Hamburg, New York, where his father worked as an electrical engineer for the Bethlehem Steel Corporation at its factory in Lackawanna.

8.

John Roberts attended La Lumiere School, an academically rigorous Catholic boarding school in La Porte, Indiana, where he was captain of the school's football team and was a regional champion in wrestling.

9.

John Roberts participated in choir and drama, and co-edited the school newspaper.

10.

John Roberts enrolled at Harvard University as a history major, entering as a sophomore with second-year standing based on his academic achievements in high school.

11.

John Roberts lived in Straus Hall and Leverett House, returning home each summer to earn money working at the steel plant his father managed.

12.

John Roberts served as the acting solicitor general for the case of Metro Broadcasting, Inc v FCC when the solicitor general, Ken Starr, had a conflict of interest.

13.

John Roberts became the head of the firm's appellate practice, and became an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University Law Center.

14.

John Roberts represented 19 states in United States v Microsoft.

15.

In 2000, John Roberts advised Jeb Bush, then governor of Florida, concerning Bush's actions in the Florida election recount during the presidential election.

16.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy refused to give John Roberts a hearing in the 107th Congress.

17.

John Roberts was confirmed on May 8,2003, and received his commission on June 2,2003.

18.

John Roberts was released to her mother three hours later.

19.

John Roberts sued, alleging that an adult would have only received a citation for the same offense, while children must be detained until parents are notified.

20.

In Hamdan v Rumsfeld, Roberts was part of a unanimous circuit panel overturning the district court ruling and upholding military tribunals set up by the Bush Administration for trying terrorism suspects known as enemy combatants.

21.

John Roberts's nomination was the first Supreme Court nomination since Stephen Breyer in 1994.

22.

John Roberts stated the following about federalism in a 1999 radio interview:.

23.

At his nomination hearing John Roberts testified that the legal memos represented the views of the administration he was representing at the time and not necessarily his own.

24.

Bush Administration, Roberts signed a legal brief urging the court to overturn Roe v Wade.

25.

In private meetings with senators before his confirmation, John Roberts testified that Roe was settled law, but added that it was subject to the legal principle of stare decisis, meaning that while the Court must give some weight to the precedent, it was not legally bound to uphold it.

26.

John Roberts was confirmed by what was, historically, a narrow margin for a Supreme Court justice.

27.

John Roberts appears to place great stock in the process-oriented tools and doctrinal rules that guard against the aggregation of judicial power and keep judicial discretion in check: jurisdictional limits, structural federalism, textualism, and the procedural rules that govern the scope of judicial review.

28.

John Roberts did not preside over Trump's second impeachment trial, believing that the Constitution only requires that the chief justice preside in the trial of the sitting president and not of a former president.

29.

On January 17,2006, Roberts dissented along with Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in Gonzales v Oregon, which held that the Controlled Substances Act does not allow the United States attorney general to prohibit physicians from prescribing drugs for the assisted suicide of the terminally ill as permitted by an Oregon law.

30.

On March 6,2006, Roberts wrote the unanimous decision in Rumsfeld v Forum for Academic and Institutional Rights that colleges accepting federal money must allow military recruiters on campus, despite university objections to the Clinton Administration-initiated "don't ask, don't tell" policy.

31.

John Roberts criticized the majority opinion as inconsistent with prior case law and for partly basing its reasoning on its perception of social custom.

32.

John Roberts said the social expectation test was flawed because the Fourth Amendment protects a legitimate expectation of privacy, not social expectations.

33.

In Gonzales v Carhart, Roberts voted with the majority to uphold the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

34.

Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion, contending that the Court's prior decisions in Roe v Wade and Casey should be reversed; Roberts declined to join that opinion.

35.

In 2022, Roberts declined to join the majority opinion in Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe v Wade.

36.

John Roberts wrote a concurring opinion supporting only the decision to uphold the Mississippi abortion statute, stating that the right to an abortion should "extend far enough to ensure a reasonable opportunity to choose, but need not extend any further".

37.

John Roberts opposes the use of race in assigning students to particular schools, including for purposes such as maintaining integrated schools.

38.

John Roberts sees such plans as discrimination in violation of the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause and Brown v Board of Education.

39.

In Pavan v Smith, the Supreme Court "summarily overruled" the Arkansas Supreme Court's decision that the state did not have to list same-sex spouses on birth certificates; Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented, but Roberts did not join their dissent, leaving open speculation that he might have ruled with the majority.

40.

In October 2020, John Roberts joined the justices in an "apparently unanimous" decision to reject an appeal from Kim Davis, who refused to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

41.

In Shelby County v Holder, Roberts struck down requirements that states and localities with a history of racially motivated voter suppression obtain federal preclearance before implementing any changes to voting laws.

42.

In 2007, John Roberts received an honorary degree from the College of the Holy Cross, where he delivered a commencement address that same year.

43.

In 2007, John Roberts had a seizure at his vacation home in St George, Maine and stayed overnight at a hospital in Rockport, Maine; doctors found no identifiable cause.

44.

On June 21,2020, John Roberts fell at a Maryland country club; his forehead required sutures and he stayed overnight in the hospital for observation.

45.

In 2010, John Roberts sold his stock in Pfizer because he was set to hear two pending cases involving the company.