Exclusive: Justice Samuel Alito was taken to a hospital last month in previously undisclosed incident

By Joan Biskupic, CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst

(CNN) — Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was taken to a hospital after becoming ill last month at a Federalist Society dinner in Philadelphia, according to people with knowledge of the March 20 incident, which had not been previously reported.

The justice was evaluated and administered fluids for dehydration. He returned to his home in Virginia that night with his security team.

In the two weeks since the incident, Alito has attended oral arguments and appeared healthy during the usual give-and-take with lawyers at the lectern.

Alito, who turned 76 on Wednesday and has served as a justice for 20 years, has become the subject of widespread speculation from commentators across the ideological spectrum and the news media over whether he might retire. (He has refused to answer journalists’ questions on the subject.)

Supreme Court spokeswoman Patricia McCabe confirmed Alito’s visit following CNN’s exclusive report.

“On the evening of Friday, March 20, Justice Alito felt ill during an event in Philadelphia. Out of an abundance of caution, he agreed with his security detail’s recommendation to see a physician before the three-hour drive home. After that examination and the administration of fluids for dehydration, he returned home that night, as previously planned,” McCabe said in a statement. “Justice Alito was thoroughly checked by his own physician, and he returned to work the following Monday for oral argument.”

Information regarding the health of the justices, who are the final word of the reach of the Constitution in American life, is often difficult to obtain. The Supreme Court’s public information office previously declined to reveal that Chief Justice John Roberts had fallen at a country club near his suburban Maryland home in June 2020, injured his head and taken by ambulance to a hospital until it was reported by the Washington Post.

If Alito were to decide to step down, the opening would offer President Donald Trump a fourth appointment to the nine-member bench. Trump named three justices with lifetime tenure in his first term.

Close friends of Alito have told CNN that he has contemplated retirement, but that no decision seems imminent.

Alito remains one of most consistent votes favoring Trump’s bold policies as they have been challenged in litigation. During Wednesday’s oral arguments over birthright citizenship, Alito expressed more receptiveness than his colleagues to Trump’s attempt to end the longstanding constitutional principle that anyone born in the US is an American citizen.

Appointed by George W. Bush in January 2006, Alito has turned out to be one of the most influential justices, particularly through his 2022 decision reversing Roe v. Wade and abortion rights and his moves to retrench on voting rights cases.

On March 20, Alito became ill at a dinner held after a Federalist Society symposium in his honor at the University of Pennsylvania law school. He was taken by his security detail to an area hospital.

The event, “An Examination of the Jurisprudence of Samuel Alito,” featured several of his former law clerks, law professors and attorneys who practice before the high court. The program was closed to the news media but available through a livestream. Alito was not on the schedule, and he did not appear at the day-long symposium.

That morning, the Supreme Court was in session to hand down opinions. Alito, who was not on the bench with his eight colleagues, was scheduled to drive with his security detail to Philadelphia.

Dean Reuter, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, did not respond to CNN’s questions about Alito and the organization’s Philadelphia events.

The evening earlier, on March 19, Alito attended a separate dinner in Washington, DC, celebrating Notre Dame law professor Sherif Girgis, who had received the Edwin Meese Originalism Award from the Meese Institute for the Rule of Law within the Mike Pence-founded organization of Advancing American Freedom.

Girgis, also a former Alito clerk, appeared the next day at the March 20 symposium. Girgis did not respond to email and telephone queries from CNN.

The-CNN-Wire
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