Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was secretly rushed to a hospital after falling ill during a Federalist Society dinner, CNN revealed Friday.
The conservative justice, who turned 76 this week, was evaluated and given fluids for dehydration in a hospital on March 20. He later returned to his home in Virginia that night, the network reported.
The Supreme Court was in session that same day to hand down opinions, but Alito was the lone justice not on the bench because he was traveling to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for the dinner.
The event was billed as “An Examination of the Jurisprudence of Samuel Alito.” While Alito was not on the schedule, it featured several of his former clerks, law professors, and attorneys who practice at the high court. The program was closed to in-person press, but available via a live stream.
That event was Alito’s second in as many days. The evening prior, he attended a separate dinner in Washington to celebrate a Notre Dame law professor.
The George W. Bush appointee has continued to serve on the bench uninterrupted despite the incident. He has appeared healthy at public events, including oral arguments at the Supreme Court.
He most recently heard oral arguments on the government’s challenge to birthright citizenship that President Donald Trump stormed out of earlier this week.
Alito remains one of the most staunchly conservative justices on the Supreme Court, having consistently voted in favor of many of Trump’s positions.
Alito found himself embroiled in controversy in 2024 after The New York Times revealed that he flew an upside-down American flag outside his house in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election—a symbol adopted by Trump supporters contesting Biden’s electoral win. Alito blamed the incident on his wife, saying it was her flag.
Now, his hospitalization and his advanced age raise questions about his longevity on the high court.
If Alito were to step down before January 2029, it would give Trump his fourth opportunity to appoint a justice to the high court—albeit, it would be swapping a conservative for another conservative.
