Samuel Alito was sworn in as the 110th justice of the U.S.
Supreme Court on Jan. 31, 2006, hours after one of the most
divided Senate confirmation votes in modern history.
The Senate voted 58-42 to confirm the former federal appellate
judge, U.S. attorney and conservative lawyer for the Reagan
administration as a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor,
whose resignation became official with the Senate vote.
 All but one of the Senate's majority Republicans voted
for Alito's confirmation, while all but four Democrats voted
against Alito -- the smallest number of senators in the
president's opposing party to support a Supreme Court justice
in modern history.
Alito was a judge on the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals, appointed by President George H.W. Bush
in 1990.
During the Reagan administration, Alito served as assistant
solicitor general and deputy attorney general, and as such,
argued several cases before the Supreme Court.
He was the second Italian-American Catholic to join the
high court after Justice Antonin Scalia. The similarities
between the two men, both judicial conservatives, earned
Alito the nickname "Scalito" among some lawyers,
according to news reports.
Although he worked on more than 3,500 cases in his career
and issued more than 300 opinions as judge, there were a
handful of decisions that came under the microscope during
his Senate Judiciary Committee hearings.
On the 3rd Circuit, Alito played a role in two high-profile
abortion cases. In 1991, he voted to uphold Pennsylvania
spousal notification requirements that were later struck
down by the Supreme Court. In 2000, he joined a three-judge
court in voiding a New Jersey prohibition on a late-term
procedure that opponents call partial birth, reported Bloomberg
news.
He cast a dissenting vote when the 3rd Circuit upheld a
federal ban on machine gun possession in 1996.
In 1997, he wrote an opinion upholding a city hall holiday
display that contained a nativity scene, a menorah and secular
items including a plastic Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman.
The Trenton, N.J.-born Alito is described by friends and
colleagues as quiet and self-effacing with a wry sense of
humor, according to a U.S. News and World Report profile.
A graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School,
he has a wife, Martha, a son in college and a daughter in
high school.
-- Compiled from wire reports and
other media sources
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