Supreme Court Justice Hospitalized After ‘Falling Ill’

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was briefly hospitalized last month after falling ill at a Federalist Society dinner in Philadelphia, according to people familiar with the March 20 incident.

Alito was evaluated and given fluids for dehydration before returning home to Virginia later that night with his security team.

The episode had not been previously reported. Alito and the court’s public information office declined to comment on the record.

The 76-year-old justice has since resumed his normal duties, attending oral arguments and appearing sharp on the bench in the weeks following the scare.

Still, the incident comes as speculation swirls over whether Alito might step down from the high court. Friends told CNN he has weighed retirement, though no decision appears imminent.

If Alito were to retire, it would hand President Donald Trump a fourth appointment to the nine-member court. Trump already named three justices during his first term.

Details about the health of sitting justices are often tightly held. The court previously kept quiet when Chief Justice John Roberts suffered a head injury in a 2020 fall near his Maryland home, an incident that only became public after reporting by The Washington Post.

Justice Samuel Alito

Alito, appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006, has been one of the court’s most reliable conservative voices. He played a central role in the 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade and has consistently backed efforts to scale back voting rights rulings.

He has also been seen as a steady vote aligned with Trump-era legal arguments. During recent oral arguments over birthright citizenship, Alito appeared more open than some of his colleagues to Trump’s push to end the longstanding interpretation that anyone born on U.S. soil is automatically a citizen.

The March 20 incident unfolded after a Federalist Society event at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where a symposium examining Alito’s jurisprudence had been held earlier in the day.

Alito was not scheduled to appear at the symposium and did not attend. He became ill later that evening at a dinner tied to the event and was taken by his security detail to a nearby hospital.

Earlier that week, on March 19, Alito attended a separate dinner in Washington honoring Notre Dame law professor Sherif Girgis, who received an award from a group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence.

Despite the brief health scare, there has been no sign of lingering issues as Alito continues to carry out his duties on the nation’s highest court.

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