Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States are the members of the Supreme Court of the United States other than the Chief Justice of the United States. The number of Associate Justices is determined by the United States Congress and is currently set at eight by the Judiciary Act of 1869.

Associate Justices, like the Chief Justice, are nominated by the President of the United States and are confirmed by the United States Senate by majority vote. This is provided for in Article II of the Constitution, which states that the President "shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint... Judges of the supreme Court." Although the Constitution refers to them as "Judges of the Supreme Court," the title actually used is "Associate Justice," introduced in the Judiciary Act of 1789. Associate justices were traditionally styled "Mr. Justice" in court opinions, but the title was shortened to "Justice" in 1980, a year before the first female justice was appointed.

Article III of the Constitution specifies that Associate Justices, and all other United States federal judges "shall hold their Offices during good Behavior". This language means that the appointments are effectively for life, ending only when a Justice dies in office, retires, or is removed from office following impeachment by the House of Representatives and conviction by the Senate.

Each of the Justices of the Supreme Court has a single vote in deciding the cases argued before it; the Chief Justice's vote counts no more than that of any other Justice. However, in drafting opinions, the Chief Justice enjoys additional influence in case disposition if in the majority through his power to assign who writes the opinion. Otherwise, the senior justice in the majority assigns the writing of a decision. Furthermore, the Chief Justice leads the discussion of the case among the justices. The Chief Justice has certain administrative responsibilities that the other Justices do not and is paid slightly more ($223,500 per year for the Chief Justice and $213,900 per year for each Associate Justice).

Associate Justices have seniority by order of appointment, although the Chief Justice is always considered to be the most senior. If two justices are appointed on the same day, the older is designated the senior Justice of the two. Currently, the senior Associate Justice is Antonin Scalia. By tradition, when the Justices are in conference deliberating the outcome of cases before the Court, the justices state their views in order of seniority. If there is a knock at their conference room door, the junior justice (who sits closest to the door) must answer it. The current junior justice is Elena Kagan.

Under 28 USC 3, when the Chief Justice is unable to discharge his functions, or that office is vacant, his duties are carried out by the most senior Associate Justice until the disability or the vacancy ends.

The current Associate Justices are (in order of seniority):

• 

  Antonin Scalia

• 

  Anthony Kennedy

• 

  Clarence Thomas

• 

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

• Stephen Breyer, SCOTUS photo portrait.jpg

  Stephen Breyer

• 

  Samuel Alito

• 

  Sonia Sotomayor

• 

  Elena Kagan

Retired Associate Justices

When Justices retire, they have the opportunity to assume duties similar to the senior status assumed by District and Circuit Judges. This means that the Justice keeps his or her title, and may serve by assignment on panels of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, or even the US District Courts if so requested and assigned. Retired Justices may choose to keep a set of chambers in the Supreme Court building, as well as to employ law clerks. The names of retired Associate Justices continue to appear alongside those of the active Justices of the Court on the Bound Volumes of Supreme Court decisions. However, retired Associate Justices (unlike judges on senior status) take no part in the consideration or decision of any cases before their former court (the Supreme Court), although they may be appointed by the Chief Justice to sit on lower courts.

Currently, there are three retired Associate Justices: Sandra Day O'Connor, who retired on January 31, 2006, David H. Souter, who retired on June 29, 2009, and John Paul Stevens, who retired on June 29, 2010. Both O'Connor and Souter occasionally serve on panels of the Courts of Appeals of various circuits. As of present, Stevens has chosen not to so serve.

List of Associate Justices

Number	Portrait	Nominee	Replacing	Prior Experience	Date of Senate Confirmation	President
1		John Rutledge	(new seat)	Governor of South Carolina	September 26, 1789	George Washington***
2		William Cushing	(new seat)	Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court, Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Superior Court	September 26, 1789
3		James Wilson	(new seat)	Lawyer	September 26, 1789
4		John Blair	(new seat)	Member of the Virginia House of Burgesses	September 26, 1789
5		James Iredell	(new seat)	North Carolina Attorney General, Judge of the North Carolina Superior Court	February 10, 1790
6		Thomas Johnson	Rutledge	Governor of Maryland, Delegate to the Continental Congress	November 7, 1791
7		William Paterson	Johnson	Governor of New Jersey, United States Senator from New Jersey, New Jersey Attorney General	March 4, 1793
8	90px	Samuel Chase	Blair	Chief Justice of the Maryland General Court, Chief Justice of the District Criminal Court in Baltimore, Delegate to the Continental Congress,	January 27, 1796
9		Bushrod Washington	Wilson	Member of the Virginia House of Delegates	December 20, 1798	John Adams*
10		Alfred Moore	Iredell	Judge of the North Carolina Superior Court, North Carolina Attorney General, Member of the North Carolina General Assembly	December 10, 1799
11		William Johnson	Moore	Speaker of the South Carolina House of Representatives	March 24, 1804	Thomas Jefferson
12		Henry Brockholst Livingston	Paterson	Justice of the New York Supreme Court	December 17, 1806
13		Thomas Todd	(new seat)	Chief Justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, Associate Justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals	March 2, 1807
14		Gabriel Duvall	Chase	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maryland's 2nd district, U.S. Comptroller of the Treasury, Member of the Maryland House of Delegates	November 18, 1811	James Madison
15		Joseph Story	Cushing	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 2nd district, Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives	November 18, 1811
16		Smith Thompson	Livingston	Justice of the New York Supreme Court, Member of the New York State Assembly	December 9, 1823	James Monroe
17		Robert Trimble	Todd	District Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Kentucky, U.S. Attorney for the District of Kentucky, Associate Justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals, Member of the Kentucky House of Representatives	May 9, 1826	John Quincy Adams
18	90px	John McLean	Trimble	United States Postmaster General, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Ohio, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Ohio's 1st district,	March 7, 1829	Andrew Jackson*
19		Henry Baldwin	Washington	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 14th district	January 6, 1830
20		James Moore Wayne	Johnson	Judge of the Superior Court of Georgia, Judge of the Georgia Court of Common Pleas, Mayor of Savannah, Georgia, Member of the Georgia House of Representatives	January 9, 1835
21		Philip Pendleton Barbour	Duvall	District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia's 11th district, Member of the Virginia House of Delegates	March 15, 1836
22		John Catron	(new seat)	Chief Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals, Associate Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court of Errors and Appeals	March 8, 1837
23		John McKinley	(new seat)	United States Senator from Alabama, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Alabama's 2nd district, Member of the Alabama House of Representatives	September 25, 1837	Martin Van Buren
24		Peter Vivian Daniel	Barbour	District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia Member of the Virginia House of Delegates	March 2, 1841
25		Samuel Nelson	Thompson	Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court, Justice of the New York Supreme Court, Judge of New York's Sixth Circuit Court	February 14, 1845	John Tyler
26		Levi Woodbury	Story	United States Secretary of the Treasury, United States Secretary of the Navy, Governor of New Hampshire, United States Senator from New Hampshire, Justice of the New Hampshire Superior Court of Judicature	January 31, 1846	James K. Polk
27		Robert Cooper Grier	Baldwin	Judge for the Pennsylvania state District Court for Allegheny County	August 4, 1846
28		Benjamin Robbins Curtis	Woodbury	Member of the Alabama House of Representatives	December 20, 1851	Millard Fillmore
29		John Archibald Campbell	McKinley	Member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives	March 22, 1853	Franklin Pierce
30		Nathan Clifford	Curtis	United States Minister to Mexico, United States Attorney General, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Maine's 1st district, Maine Attorney General, Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives	January 12, 1858	James Buchanan
31		Noah Haynes Swayne	McLean	U.S. Attorney for the District of Ohio, Member of the Ohio House of Representatives	January 24, 1862	Abraham Lincoln*
32		Samuel Freeman Miller	Daniel	Lawyer	July 16, 1862
33		David Davis	Campbell	Judge of Illinois Eighth Judicial Circuit Court, Member of the Illinois House of Representatives	December 8, 1862
34		Stephen Johnson Field	(new seat)	Chief Justice of California, Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, Member of the California State Assembly	March 10, 1863
35		William Strong	Grier	Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania's 9th district	February 18, 1870	Ulysses Simpson Grant*
36		Joseph Philo Bradley	(new seat)	Lawyer	March 21, 1870
37		Ward Hunt	Nelson	Associate Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Member of the New York State Assembly	December 11, 1872
38		John Marshall Harlan	Davis	Attorney General of Kentucky, County judge for Franklin County, Kentucky	November 29, 1877	Rutherford B. Hayes
39		William Burnham Woods	Strong	Circuit Judge for the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Member of the Ohio House of Representatives	December 21, 1880
40		Thomas Stanley Matthews	Swayne	U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Member of the Ohio Senate, Member of the Ohio House of Representatives	May 12, 1881	James Garfield
41		Horace Gray	Clifford	Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court	December 20, 1881	Chester A. Arthur
42		Samuel Blatchford	Hunt	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York	March 22, 1882
43		Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar	Woods	United States Secretary of the Interior, United States Senator from Mississippi, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi 1st district	January 16, 1888	Grover Cleveland*
44		David Josiah Brewer	Matthews	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Associate Justice of the Kansas Supreme Court, Judge of Kansas' First Judicial District	December 18, 1889	Benjamin Harrison
45		Henry Billings Brown	Miller	District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan	December 29, 1890
46		George Shiras, Jr.	Bradley	Lawyer	July 26, 1892
47		Howell Edmunds Jackson	Lamar	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Member of the Tennessee House of Representatives	February 18, 1893
48		Edward Douglass White	Blatchford	United States Secretary of the Interior, United States Senator from Louisiana, Associate Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, Member of the Louisiana State Senate	February 19, 1894	Grover Cleveland
49		Rufus Wheeler Peckham	Jackson	Associate Judge of the New York Court of Appeals	December 9, 1895
50		Joseph McKenna	Field	United States Attorney General, Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from California's 3rd, Member of the California State Assembly	January 21, 1898	William McKinley
51		Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.	Gray	Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Associate Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court	December 4, 1902	Theodore Roosevelt
52		William R. Day	Shiras	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, United States Secretary of State, United States Assistant Secretary of State,	February 23, 1903
53		William Henry Moody	Brown	United States Attorney General, United States Secretary of the Navy, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts 6th, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Massachusetts	December 12, 1906
54		Horace Harmon Lurton	Peckham	Dean of the Vanderbilt University School of Law, Circuit Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Associate Justice of the Tennessee Supreme Court	December 20, 1909	William Howard Taft*
55		Charles Evans Hughes	Brewer	Governor of New York, Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General, Professor	May 2, 1910
56		Willis Van Devanter	White	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Chief Justice of the Wyoming Supreme Court	December 15, 1910
57		Joseph Rucker Lamar	Moody	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia, Member of the Georgia House of Representatives	December 15, 1910
58		Mahlon Pitney	Harlan	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Jersey's 4th, Associate Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court	March 13, 1912
59		James Clark McReynolds	Lurton	United States Attorney General, United States Assistant Attorney General, Professor	August 29, 1914	Woodrow Wilson
60		Louis Brandeis	Lamar	Lawyer	June 1, 1916
61		John Hessin Clarke	Hughes	District Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio	July 24, 1916
62		George Sutherland	Clarke	United States Senator from Utah, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Utah's at-large district, Member of the Utah State Senate	September 5, 1922	Warren G. Harding*
63		Pierce Butler	Day	President of the Minnesota State Bar Association	December 21, 1922
64		Edward Terry Sanford	Pitney	District Judge of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee, District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, United States Assistant Attorney General	January 29, 1923
65		Harlan F. Stone	McKenna	United States Attorney General, Dean of Columbia Law School	February 5, 1925	Calvin Coolidge
66		Owen Josephus Roberts	Sanford	Assistant District Attorney for Philadelphia	May 20, 1930	Herbert Hoover*
67		Benjamin N. Cardozo	Holmes	Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Associate Judge of the New York Court of Appeals, Justice of the New York Supreme Court	February 24, 1932
68		Hugo Black	Van Devanter	United States Senator from Alabama, Jefferson County, Alabama Prosecuting Attorney	August 17, 1937	Franklin Delano Roosevelt*
69	90px	Stanley Forman Reed	Sutherland	United States Solicitor General, General Counsel of the U.S. Reconstruction Finance Corporation, General Counsel of the U.S. Federal Farm Board, Member of the Kentucky House of Representatives	January 25, 1938
70		Felix Frankfurter	Cardozo	Chair of Harvard Law School, Co-founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, General Counsel to the National Consumers League	January 17, 1939
71		William O. Douglas	Brandeis	Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission,	April 4, 1939
72		Frank Murphy	Butler	United States Attorney General, Governor of Michigan, U.S. High Commissioner of the Philippines, U.S. Governor-General of the Philippines, Mayor of Detroit, Michigan, Judge of the Detroit Recorder's Court, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan	January 16, 1940
73		James F. Byrnes	McReynolds	United States Senator from South Carolina, Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina's 2nd district	June 12, 1941
74	90px	Robert H. Jackson	Stone	United States Attorney General, United States Solicitor General, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Tax Division, General Counsel to the Bureau of Internal Revenue, Chairman of the American Bar Association's Conference of Bar Association Delegates	July 7, 1941
75		Wiley Blount Rutledge	Byrnes	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Dean of the Washington University School of Law, Dean of the University of Iowa College of Law	February 8, 1943
76	90px	Harold Hitz Burton	Roberts	United States Senator from Ohio, Mayor of Cleveland, Cleveland City Law Director, Member of the Ohio House of Representatives	September 19, 1945	Harry S. Truman*
77		Tom C. Clark	Murphy	Attorney General of the United States, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General for War Risk Litigation, District Attorney for Dallas, Texas	August 18, 1949
78		Sherman Minton	Rutledge	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, United States Senator from Indiana	October 4, 1949
79		John Marshall Harlan II	Jackson	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Special Assistant Attorney General of New York, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York	March 16, 1955	Dwight D. Eisenhower*
80		William J. Brennan	Minton	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of New Jersey, Judge of the New Jersey Superior Court	March 19, 1957
81		Charles Evans Whittaker	Reed	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, District Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri	March 19, 1957
82		Potter Stewart	Burton	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Member of the Cincinnati City Council	May 5, 1959
83		Byron White	Whittaker	United States Deputy Attorney General	April 11, 1962	John F. Kennedy
84		Arthur Goldberg	Frankfurter	United States Secretary of Labor	September 25, 1962
85		Abe Fortas	Goldberg	United States Under Secretary of the Interior, General Counsel of the Public Works Administration	August 11, 1965	Lyndon B. Johnson
86		Thurgood Marshall	Clark	United States Solicitor General, Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, Chief Counsel for the NAACP	August 30, 1967
87		Harry Blackmun	Fortas	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit	May 12, 1970	Richard Nixon*
88		Lewis Franklin Powell, Jr.	Black	President of the American Bar Association, Chairman of the Richmond Virginia, School Board	December 6, 1971
89		William Rehnquist	Harlan	United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel	December 10, 1971
90		John Paul Stevens	Douglas	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Second Vice President of the Chicago Bar Association	December 17, 1975	Gerald Ford
91		Sandra Day O'Connor	Stewart	Judge of the Arizona Court of Appeals, Judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court, Majority Leader of the Arizona Senate, Member of the Arizona Senate, Assistant Attorney General of Arizona	September 21, 1981	Ronald Reagan*
92		Antonin Scalia	Rehnquist	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel, Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States, General Counsel to the Office of Telecommunications Policy	September 17, 1986
93		Anthony Kennedy	Powell	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Member of the board of the Federal Judicial Center	February 3, 1988
94		David Souter	Brennan	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Associate Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court, Associate Justice of the Superior Court of New Hampshire, Attorney General of New Hampshire, Deputy Attorney General of New Hampshire	October 2, 1990	George H. W. Bush
95		Clarence Thomas	Marshall	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Chairperson of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Assistant Secretary of Education for the Office for Civil Rights, Assistant Attorney General of Missouri	October 15, 1991
96		Ruth Bader Ginsburg	White	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, General Counsel of the American Civil Liberties Union	August 3, 1993	Bill Clinton
97	90px	Stephen Breyer	Blackmun	Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit	July 29, 1994
98		Samuel Alito	O'Connor	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, United States Attorney for the District of New Jersey, Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey	January 31, 2006	George W. Bush*
99		Sonia Sotomayor	Souter	Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Assistant District Attorney for New York County, New York	August 6, 2009	Barack Obama
100		Elena Kagan	Stevens	Solicitor General of the United States, Dean of Harvard Law School, Associate White House Counsel, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Council	August 5, 2010

• * Also appointed one Chief Justice.
• *** Also appointed three Chief Justices.

See also

• Associate Justice
• Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States
• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States by court composition
• List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States by seat

Further reading

• Christensen, George A. (1983) Here Lies the Supreme Court: Gravesites of the Justices, Yearbook. Supreme Court Historical Society.
• Christensen, George A., Here Lies the Supreme Court: Revisited, Journal of Supreme Court History, Volume 33 Issue 1, Pages 17 – 41 (19 February 2008), University of Alabama.

External links

• Historic collection of Supreme Court decisions and biographies indexed by judge name
• Members of the Supreme Court of the United States from the Court's website.