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 ruled by the United States Congress and is currently set at eight by the Judiciary Act of 1869.

How they are nominated

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.

Duties

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.

Succession process

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.

Current justices

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

Justice / birthdate and place		Appointed by	SCV	Age at		Start date / length of service	Previous position or office (most recent prior to joining the Court)	Replaced
				Start	Present
	Clarence Thomas (1948-06-23) June 23, 1948 Pin Point, Georgia	G. H. W. Bush	52–48	43	75	October 23, 1991 31 years, 330 days	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (1990–1991)	Marshall
	Samuel Alito (1950-04-01) April 1, 1950 Trenton, New Jersey	G. W. Bush	58–42	55	73	January 31, 2006 17 years, 230 days	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (1990–2006)	O'Connor
	Sonia Sotomayor (1954-06-25) June 25, 1954 The Bronx, New York	Obama	68–31	55	69	August 8, 2009 14 years, 41 days	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (1998–2009)	Souter
	Elena Kagan (1960-04-28) April 28, 1960 Manhattan, New York	Obama	63–37	50	63	August 7, 2010 13 years, 42 days	Solicitor General of the United States (2009–2010)	Stevens
	Neil Gorsuch (1967-08-29) August 29, 1967 Denver, Colorado	Trump	54–45	49	56	April 10, 2017 6 years, 161 days	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit (2006–2017)	Scalia
	Brett Kavanaugh (1965-02-12) February 12, 1965 Washington, D.C.	Trump	50–48	53	58	October 6, 2018 4 years, 347 days	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (2006–2018)	Kennedy
	Amy Coney Barrett (1972-01-28) January 28, 1972 New Orleans, Louisiana	Trump	52–48	48	51	October 27, 2020 2 years, 326 days	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (2017–2020)	Ginsburg
	Ketanji Brown Jackson (1970-09-14) September 14, 1970 Washington, D.C.	Biden	53–47	52	53	June 30, 2022 1 year, 80 days	Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (2021–2022)	Breyer
Source:

Other websites

• Historic collection of Supreme Court decisions and biographies indexed by judge name