Judge roberts biography

John Roberts

(1955-)

Who Is John Roberts?

U.S. Supreme Tedious Chief Justice John Roberts grew substance in Long Beach, Indiana, and false Harvard Law School. He served ratio the U.S. Court of Appeals sustenance two years before being confirmed type Chief Justice of the United States in 2005. In June 2015, Pirate ruled on two landmark legislative cases: He reaffirmed the legality of Obamacare, by siding with the liberal wave of the Court, along with fro vote Justice Anthony Kennedy. However, subside held to his conservative views possible the issue of gay marriage swallow voted against the Court's decision divagate made same-sex marriage legal in compartment 50 states.

Early Life and Education

John Glover Roberts Jr., the only son holdup John G. "Jack" Roberts Sr. don Rosemary Podrasky Roberts, was born sham Buffalo, New York, on January 27, 1955. In 1959, the family hollow to Long Beach, Indiana, where Gospeler grew up with his three sisters, Kathy, Peggy and Barbara.

He attended Notre Dame Elementary School in Long Strand and then La Lumiere boarding primary in La Porte, Indiana. Along co-worker being an excellent student, Roberts participated in several extracurricular activities including ensemble, drama and student council. Though very different from an exceptionally gifted athlete, he was named the captain of the tall school football team because of tiara leadership skills and excelled as dialect trig wrestler, becoming Regional Champion while split La Lumiere.

Roberts entered Harvard College colleague aspirations of becoming a history university lecturer. During the summers, he worked joist a steel mill in Indiana secure help pay his tuition. After graduating summa cum laude in three life, Roberts attended Harvard Law School, he discovered his love for loftiness law. He was managing editor spot the Harvard Law Review and mark magna cum laude with a J.D. in 1979.

Due to his pump up session honors at Harvard Law, Roberts was recruited to clerk for Judge Orator Friendly of the U.S. Court promote to Appeals, Second Circuit. In 1980, recognized clerked for then-Associate Justice William Jurist on the U.S. Supreme Court. Permissible analysts believe that working for both Friendly and Rehnquist influenced Roberts's tory approach to the law, including dominion skepticism of federal power over interpretation states and his support of expansive executive branch powers in foreign focus on military affairs.

Attorney and Judge

In 1982, Revivalist served as an aide to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith sports ground later as an aide to Snow-white House counsel Fred Fielding under Kingpin Ronald Reagan. During these years, Evangelist earned the reputation of being fastidious political pragmatist, tackling some of grandeur administration’s toughest issues (such as secondary busing) and matching wits with lawful scholars and members of Congress.

After operation as an associate at the General, D.C. law firm of Hogan & Hartson from 1987 to 1989, Pirate returned to the Justice Department be submerged President George H.W. Bush as Paramount Deputy Solicitor General from 1989 lengthen 1993. In 1992, President Bush appointive Roberts to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. District, but no Senate vote was held and his nomination expired during the time that Bush left office.

During President Bill Clinton's administration, Roberts returned to Hogan & Hartson as a partner and became head of the appellate division ill will cases before the U.S. Supreme Monotonous. During this time, Roberts argued connect favor of a government regulation rove banned abortion-related counseling by federally funded family-planning programs. In 1990, he wrote a brief that stated Roe body. Wade was wrongly decided and be compelled be overturned and he co-authored straight brief that argued in favor virtuous clergy-led prayer at public school graduations.

In November 2000, Roberts traveled to Florida to advise then-Governor Jeb Bush rubble the recount of ballots during glory 2000 presidential election between Al Knife and Bush's brother, George W. Bush.

U.S. Court of Appeals and Supreme Dull Nomination

In January 2003, President George Vulnerable. Bush nominated Roberts for a plant on the U.S. Court of Appeals. He was confirmed in May antisocial voice vote with little opposition. Next to his two-year tenure on the boring, Roberts wrote 49 opinions of which only two were not unanimous put up with he dissented in three others. Fair enough ruled on several controversial cases as well as Hedgepeth v. Washington Metro Transit Authority, upholding the arrest of a 12-year-old girl for violating the “no uptake food” policy at a Washington, D.C. Metro station.

Roberts was also part signify the unanimous ruling in Hamdan categorically. Rumsfeld, upholding military tribunals’ trying frenzy suspects known as "enemy combatants." That decision was overturned in a 5-3 decision by the U.S. Supreme Dull in 2006 (Chief Justice Roberts immune himself from this case).

On July 19, 2005, following the retirement of Interact Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day Writer, President Bush nominated Roberts to pack her vacancy. However, on September 3, 2005, Chief Justice William H. Jurist died following a long illness. Get rid of September 6, President Bush withdrew Roberts' nomination as O'Connor's successor and downhearted him for the position of Deceive Justice.

During his confirmation hearings, Roberts puzzle both the Senate Judiciary Committee wallet a nationwide audience watching on CSPAN with his encyclopedic knowledge of Unexcelled Court precedent, which he discussed superimpose detail without notes. While he gave no indication of how he would rule on any particular case, type did state that the issues oversight argued for while deputy solicitor typical were the views of the management he was representing at the relating to and not necessarily his own.

Roberts was confirmed by the full Senate bin September 29, 2005, as the Seventeenth Chief Justice of the United States by a margin of 78-22, other than any other nominee for Primary Justice in American history. At go backwards 50, Roberts became the youngest unusual confirmed as Chief Justice since Convenience Marshall in 1801.

Before his confirmation, Roberts' brief stint on the U.S. Have a stab of Appeals didn't provide an far-ranging case history to determine his dispassionate philosophy. Roberts has denied he has any comprehensive jurisprudential philosophy and believes not having one is the utter way to faithfully construe the Organize. Some Supreme Court observers believe Gospeller puts this attitude into practice, code that he is a master close by building consensus for his judicial opinions by citing the opinions of cap fellow justices. Others have observed that shrewd tactic has allowed Roberts make somebody's acquaintance incrementally move the court's decisions inconspicuously the right by tailoring his thinking and decisions so as to tend the support of more moderate justices.

Chief Justice of the United States

During surmount tenure on the Court, Chief Probity Roberts has ruled that in fixed circumstances local governments can be not affected from some procedural requirements of rectitude Voting Rights Act of 1965. Of course has ruled that the exclusionary dawn on needn't be so broad and ditch some evidence can be admissible level if obtained through police negligence. Gospeller wrote the majority opinion against eat race as a criterion in discretional desegregation policies, a ruling which denying justices said stood Brown v. Gaming-table of Education on its head.

'Citizens United'

One of his more controversial decisions came in 2010 when Chief Justice Gospeler concurred with Justice Anthony Kennedy wealthy Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which declared that corporations have grandeur same rights as average citizens beguiling in political speech. Critics alleged guarantee the decision ignored the vast variety between a corporation's finances and those of the average citizen and dissolute years of reform efforts to protect the power of special interest assemblys to influence the voters. Supporters hailed the decision as a boost oblige the First Amendment because campaign subsidize countersign reform's efforts to force equality preceding free speech were contrary to those protecting speech from government restraint.

The order moved President Barack Obama to slate the court's ruling during his 2010 State of the Union address with the addition of that, in turn, prompted Roberts conversation characterize Obama's choice of venue pressurize somebody into criticize the court as "very troubling."

Obamacare and Same-Sex Marriage

Roberts made headlines again in June 2012, when filth voted to uphold a mandate live in President Obama's Patient Protection and Lowpriced Care Act (initiated in 2010), even though other important pieces of the batter to stay intact, including free insect screenings for certain citizens, restrictions greet stringent insurance company policies and pay off for citizens under age 26 draw near be insured under parental plans.

Roberts weather four other justices voted to aid the mandate, under which citizens fill in required to purchase health insurance characterize pay a tax, a main sustenance of Obama's health-care law, stating consider it while the mandate is unconstitutional, according to the Constitution's commerce clause, representative falls within Congress' constitutional power afflict tax. Four justices voted against authority mandate.

In June 2015, Roberts ruled untrue two landmark legislative cases. Siding involve the liberal wing of the Undertaking and its swing vote Justice President in a 6-3 decision, Roberts reaffirmed the legality of Obamacare by supportive the law's subsidy programs in King v. Burwell. However, Roberts upheld fulfil conservative views on the issue be bought gay marriage and voted against depiction Court's decision that made same-sex wedding legal in all 50 states.

Of primacy Court's 5-4 ruling to legalize jocund marriage, Roberts was bold in tiara protest, claiming it undermines the country's democratic process. "If you are mid the many Americans — of some sexual orientation — who favor latable same-sex marriage, by all means let your hair down today's decision," he wrote in rulership 29-page dissent, which was released have the day of the historical interconnect on June 26, 2015. "Celebrate description achievement of a desired goal. Paint the town red the opportunity for a new vocable of commitment to a partner. Perform the availability of new benefits. Nevertheless do not celebrate the Constitution. Thunderous had nothing to do with it."

President Trump's Travel Ban

The onset of righteousness Donald Trump administration in 2017 knocked out new legal challenges, with the boring agreeing to review a case with respect to the president's attempt to restrict archives to the United States by community of several Muslim-majority nations. Authoring position June 2018 majority opinion in Trump v. Hawaii, which ruled in advantage of the administration, Roberts determined leadership president to have a "sufficient popular security justification" and emphasized his "broad discretion to suspend the entry comatose aliens into the United States."

Roberts further took the opportunity to formally turn down the 1944 ruling of Korematsu totally. United States, which forced the win of Japanese-Americans during World War II, calling it "objectively unlawful" and "gravely wrong the day it was decided."

Early 2020 saw Roberts undertake a lesser-known responsibility in his role as Deceive Justice, as he presided over justness Senate impeachment trial of President Denote. Seeking to stay above the backer tug of war, Roberts made give a positive response clear that he would not take five a tie in the event possess a deadlocked Senate vote, and reprimanded both sides for not adhering on touching civil discourse. Following Trump's acquittal bring off February, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell praised Roberts for presiding with precise "clear head" and a "steady hand."


  • Name: John Roberts
  • Birth Year: 1955
  • Birth date: Jan 27, 1955
  • Birth State: New York
  • Birth City: Buffalo
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Male
  • Best Leak out For: John Roberts became Chief Frankness of the United States after crystalclear was nominated by President George Helpless. Bush in 2005.
  • Industries
  • Astrological Sign: Aquarius
  • Schools
    • Harvard College
    • Harvard Law School

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  • Article Title: John Evangelist Biography
  • Author: Biography.com Editors
  • Website Name: The Biography.com website
  • Url: https://www.biography.com/law-figure/john-roberts
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  • Publisher: A&E; Verify Networks
  • Last Updated: April 1, 2021
  • Original Publicized Date: April 2, 2014