Demographics of the Supreme Court of the United States

There have been six foreign-born justices in the Court's history: James Wilson (1789-1798), born in Caskardy, Scotland; James Iredell (1790-1799), born in Lewes, England; William Paterson (1793-1806), born in County Antrim, Ireland; David Brewer (1889-1910), born to American missionary parents in Smyrna, Ottoman Empire (now İzmir, Turkey);[16] George Sutherland (1922-1939), born in Buckinghamshire, England; and Felix Frankfurter (1939-1962), born in Vienna, Austria.[17]

The vast majority of white justices have been of Northern European, Northwestern European, or Germanic Protestant descent. There have been several justices of Irish descent with William Paterson born in Ireland to an Ulster Scots Protestant family and Joseph McKenna, Edward Douglas White, Pierce Butler, Frank Murphy, William J. Brennan Jr., Anthony Kennedy, and Brett Kavanaugh being of Irish Catholic origin. Up until the 1980s, only six justices of "central, eastern, or southern European derivation" had been appointed, and even among these six justices, five of them "were of Germanic background, which includes Austrian, German-Bohemian, and Swiss origins (John Catron, Samuel F. Miller, Louis Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and Warren Burger)", with Brandeis and Frankfurter being of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, while only one justice was of non-Germanic, Southern European descent (Benjamin N. Cardozo, of Sephardic Jewish descent).[18] Cardozo, appointed to the Court in 1932, was the first justice known to have non-Germanic, non-Anglo-Saxon or non-Irish ancestry and the first justice of Southern European descent.. Both of Justice Cardozo's parents descended from Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula who fled to Holland during the Spanish Inquisition then to London, before arriving in New York prior to the American Revolution.[19] Justice Antonin Scalia, who served from 1986-2016, and Justice Samuel Alito, who has served since 2006, are the first justices of Italian descent to be appointed to the Supreme Court. Justice Scalia's father and both maternal grandparents as well as both of Justice Alito's parents were born in Italy.[20][21][22] Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born to a Jewish father who immigrated from Russia at age 13 and a Jewish mother who was born four months after her parents immigrated from Poland.[23]

No African-American candidate was given serious consideration for appointment to the Supreme Court until the election of John F. Kennedy, who weighed the possibility of appointing William H. Hastie of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.[24] Hastie had been the first African-American elevated to a Court of Appeals when Harry S. Truman had so appointed him in 1949, and by the time of the Kennedy Administration, it was widely anticipated that Hastie might be appointed to the Supreme Court.[25] That Kennedy gave serious consideration to making this appointment "represented the first time in American history that an African American was an actual contender for the high court".[24]

The first African American appointed to the Court was Thurgood Marshall, appointed by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1967. The second was Clarence Thomas, appointed by George H. W. Bush to succeed Marshall in 1991.

Johnson appointed Marshall to the Supreme Court following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark, saying that this was "the right thing to do, the right time to do it, the right man and the right place." Marshall was confirmed as an Associate Justice by a Senate vote of 69–11 on August 31, 1967.[26] Johnson confidently predicted to one biographer, Doris Kearns Goodwin, that a lot of black baby boys would be named "Thurgood" in honor of this choice (in fact, Kearns's research of birth records in New York and Boston indicates that Johnson's prophecy did not come true).[27]

Bush initially wanted to nominate Thomas to replace William Brennan, who stepped down in 1990, but he then decided that Thomas had not yet had enough experience as a judge after only months on the federal bench.[28] Bush therefore nominated New Hampshire Supreme Court judge David Souter (who is not African American) instead.[28] The selection of Thomas to instead replace Marshall preserved the existing racial composition of the court.

Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic justice, with appointing President Barack Obama.

The words "Latino" and "Hispanic" are sometimes given distinct meanings, with "Latino" referring to persons of Latin American descent, and "Hispanic" referring to persons having an ancestry, language or culture traceable to Spain or to the Iberian Peninsula as a whole, as well as to persons of Latin American descent, whereas the term "Lusitanic" usually refers to persons having an ancestry, language or culture traceable to Portugal specifically.

Sonia Sotomayor—nominated by President Barack Obama on May 26, 2009, and sworn in on August 8—is the first Supreme Court Justice of Latin American descent. Born in New York City of Puerto Rican parents, she has been known to refer to herself as a "Nuyorican". Sotomayor is also generally regarded as the first Hispanic justice, although some sources claim that this distinction belongs to former Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo.

It has been claimed that "only since the George H. W. Bush administration have Hispanic candidates received serious consideration from presidents in the selection process",[29] and that Emilio M. Garza (considered for the vacancy eventually given to Clarence Thomas[30]) was the first Hispanic judge for whom such an appointment was contemplated.[31] Subsequently, Bill Clinton was reported by several sources to have considered José A. Cabranes for a Supreme Court nomination on both occasions when a Court vacancy opened during the Clinton presidency.[32][33] The possibility of a Hispanic Justice returned during the George W. Bush Presidency, with various reports suggesting that Emilio M. Garza,[34] Alberto Gonzales,[35] and Consuelo M. Callahan[36] were under consideration for the vacancy left by the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor. O'Connor's seat eventually went to Samuel Alito, however. Speculation about a Hispanic nomination arose again after the election of Barack Obama.[37] In 2009, Obama appointed Sonia Sotomayor, a woman of Puerto Rican descent, to be the first unequivocally Hispanic Justice.[38] Both the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and the Hispanic National Bar Association count Sotomayor as the first Hispanic justice.[39][40]

Some historians contend that Cardozo—a Sephardic Jew believed to be of distant Portuguese descent[41]—should also be counted as the first Hispanic Justice.[1] Schmidhauser wrote in 1979 that "[a]mong the large ethnic groupings of European origin which have never been represented upon the Supreme Court are the Italians, Southern Slavs, and Hispanic Americans."[18] The National Hispanic Center for Advanced Studies and Policy Analysis wrote in 1982 that the Supreme Court "has never had an Hispanic Justice",[42] and the Hispanic American Almanac similarly reported in 1996 that "no Hispanic has yet sat on the U.S. Supreme Court".[43] However, Segal and Spaeth state: "Though it is often claimed that no Hispanics have served on the Court, it is not clear why Benjamin Cardozo, a Sephardic Jew of Spanish heritage, should not count." They identify a number of other sources that present conflicting views as to Cardozo's ethnicity, with one simply labeling him "Iberian." In 2007, the Dictionary of Latino Civil Rights History also listed Cardozo as "the first Hispanic named to the Supreme Court of the United States." [44]

The nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, widely described in media accounts as the first Hispanic nominee, drew more attention to the question of Cardozo's ethnicity.[39][40][45][46] Cardozo biographer Andrew Kaufman questioned the usage of the term "hispanic" during Cardozo's lifetime, commenting: "Well, I think he regarded himself as Sephardic Jew whose ancestors came from the Iberian Peninsula."[39] However, "no one has ever firmly established that the family's roots were, in fact, in Portugal".[47] It has also been asserted that Cardozo himself "confessed in 1937 that his family preserved neither the Spanish language nor Iberian cultural traditions".[48] By contrast, Cardozo made his own translations of authoritative legal works written in French and German.[49]

Many ethnic groups have never been represented on the Court. There has never been a Justice with any Asian, Native American, or Pacific Islander heritage, and no person having such a heritage was publicly considered for an appointment until the 21st century. Legal scholar Viet D. Dinh, of Vietnamese descent, was named as a potential George W. Bush nominee.[50] During the presidency of Barack Obama, potential nominees included Harold Hongju Koh, of Korean descent, and former Idaho attorney general Larry Echo Hawk, a member of the Pawnee tribe.[51] Indian-American federal judge Amul Thapar was included in a list of individuals Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump "would consider as potential replacements for Justice Scalia at the United States Supreme Court."[52][53] and was one of six judges interviewed by President Trump in July 2018 while being considered to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy.[54][55]

Public opinion about ethnic diversity on the court "varies widely depending on the poll question's wording".[6] For example, in two polls taken in 1991, one resulted in half of respondents agreeing that it was "important that there always be at least one black person" on the Court while the other had only 20% agreeing with that sentiment, and with 77% agreeing that "race should never be a factor in choosing Supreme Court justices".[6]

In 1991, a poll found that 53% of Americans felt it "important that there always be at least one woman" on the Court.[6] However, when O'Connor stepped down from the court, leaving Justice Ginsburg as the lone remaining woman, only one in seven persons polled found it "essential that a woman be nominated to replace" O'Connor.[6]

All but a handful of Supreme Court justices have been married. Frank Murphy, Benjamin Cardozo, and James McReynolds were all lifelong bachelors.[60] In addition, retired justice David Souter and current justice Elena Kagan have never been married.[61][62] William O. Douglas was the first Justice to divorce while on the Court, and also had the most marriages of any Justice, with four.[60] Justice John Paul Stevens divorced his first wife in 1979, marrying his second wife later that year. Sonia Sotomayor was the first female justice to be appointed as an unmarried woman, having divorced in 1983, long before her nomination in 2009.[60][62]

Several justices have become widowers while on the bench. The 1792 death of Elizabeth Rutledge, wife of Justice John Rutledge, contributed to the mental health problems that led to the rejection of his recess appointment.[63] Roger B. Taney survived his wife, Anne, by twenty years. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. resolutely continued working on the Court for several years after the death of his wife.[64] William Rehnquist was a widower for the last fourteen years of his service on the Court, his wife Natalie having died on October 17, 1991 after suffering from ovarian cancer.[65] With the death of Martin D. Ginsburg in June 2010, Ruth Bader Ginsburg became the first woman to be widowed while serving on the Court.[66]

With regard to sexual orientation, no Supreme Court justice has identified himself or herself as anything other than heterosexual, and no incontrovertible evidence of a justice having any other sexual orientation has ever been uncovered. However, the personal lives of several justices and nominees have attracted speculation.

G. Harrold Carswell was unsuccessfully nominated by Richard Nixon in 1970, and was convicted in 1976 of battery for making an "unnatural and lascivious" advance to a male police officer working undercover in a Florida men's room.[67] Some therefore claim him as the only gay or bisexual person nominated to the Court thus far.[68][69] If so, it is unlikely that Nixon was aware of it; White House Counsel John Dean later wrote of Carswell that "[w]hile Richard Nixon was always looking for historical firsts, nominating a homosexual to the high court would not have been on his list".[69]

Speculation has been recorded about the sexual orientation of a few justices who were lifelong bachelors, but no unambiguous evidence exists that they were gay. Perhaps the greatest body of circumstantial evidence surrounds Frank Murphy, who was dogged by "[r]umors of homosexuality [...] all his adult life".[70]

For more than 40 years, Edward G. Kemp was Frank Murphy's devoted, trusted companion. Like Murphy, Kemp was a lifelong bachelor. From college until Murphy's death, the pair found creative ways to work and live together. [...] When Murphy appeared to have the better future in politics, Kemp stepped into a supportive, secondary role.[71]

As well as Murphy's close relationship with Kemp, Murphy's biographer, historian Sidney Fine, found in Murphy's personal papers a letter that "if the words mean what they say, refers to a homosexual encounter some years earlier between Murphy and the writer." However, the letter's veracity cannot be confirmed and a review of all the evidence led Fine to conclude that he "could not stick his neck out and say [Murphy] was gay".[72]

Speculation has also surrounded Benjamin Cardozo, whose celibacy suggests repressed homosexuality or asexuality. The fact that he was unmarried and was personally tutored by the writer Horatio Alger (alleged to have had sexual relations with boys) led some of Cardozo's biographers to insinuate that Cardozo was homosexual, but no real evidence exists to corroborate this possibility. Constitutional law scholar Jeffrey Rosen noted in a The New York Times Book Review of Richard Polenberg's book on Cardozo:

Polenberg describes Cardozo's lifelong devotion to his older sister Nell, with whom he lived in New York until her death in 1929. When asked why he had never married, Cardozo replied, quietly and sadly, "I never could give Nellie the second place in my life." Polenberg suggests that friends may have stressed Cardozo's devotion to his sister to discourage rumors "that he was sexually dysfunctional, or had an unusually low sexual drive or was homosexual." But he produces no evidence to support any of these possibilities, except to note that friends, in describing Cardozo, used words like "beautiful", "exquisite", "sensitive" or "delicate."[73]

Andrew Kaufman, author of Cardozo, a biography published in 2000, notes that "Although one cannot be absolutely certain, it seems highly likely that Cardozo lived a celibate life".[74] Judge Learned Hand is quoted in the book as saying about Cardozo: "He [had] no trace of homosexuality anyway".[75]

More recently, when David Souter was nominated to the Court, "conservative groups expressed concern to the White House... that the president's bachelor nominee might conceivably be a homosexual".[76] Similar questions were raised regarding the sexual orientation of unmarried nominee Elena Kagan.[77] However, no evidence was ever produced regarding Souter's sexual orientation, and Kagan's apparent heterosexuality was attested by colleagues familiar with her dating history.[78]

Most Supreme Court justices have been Protestant Christians. These have included 33 Episcopalians, 18 Presbyterians, nine Unitarians, five Methodists, three Baptists, and lone representatives of various other denominations.[81] William Rehnquist was the Court's only Lutheran. Noah Swayne was a Quaker. Some 15 Protestant justices did not adhere to a particular denomination. The religious beliefs of James Wilson, one of the earliest Justices, have been the subject of some dispute, as there are writings from various points of his life from which it can be argued that he leaned towards Presbyterianism, Anglicanism, Thomism, or Deism; it has been deemed likely that he eventually favored some form of Christianity.[82] Baptist denominations and other evangelical churches have been underrepresented on the Court, relative to the population of the United States. Conversely, mainline Protestant churches historically were overrepresented.

Following the retirement of John Paul Stevens in June 2010, the Court had an entirely non-Protestant composition for the first time in its history.[83][84] Neil Gorsuch is the first member of a mainline Protestant denomination to sit on the court since Stevens' retirement.[85] Although Neil Gorsuch, appointed in 2017, attends and is a member of an Episcopal church, he was raised Catholic and it is unclear if he considers himself a Catholic who is also a member of a Protestant church or simply a Protestant.[79] Prior to his appointment he was an active member of Holy Comforter Episcopal Church and, then, St. John's Episcopal Church in Boulder, Colorado.[86][87]

Roger B. Taney, the first Roman Catholic Justice.

The first Catholic justice, Roger B. Taney, was appointed chief justice in 1836 by Andrew Jackson. The second, Edward Douglass White, was appointed as an associate justice in 1894, but also went on to become chief justice. Joseph McKenna was appointed in 1898, placing two Catholics on the Court until White's death in 1921. This period marked the beginning of an inconsistently observed "tradition" of having a "Catholic seat" on the court.[88]

Other Catholic justices included Pierce Butler (appointed 1923) and Frank Murphy (appointed 1940). Sherman Minton, appointed in 1949, was a Protestant during his time on the Court. To some, however, his wife's Catholic faith implied a "Catholic seat".[89] Minton joined his wife's church in 1961, five years after he retired from the Court.[90] Minton was succeeded by a Catholic, however, when President Eisenhower appointed William J. Brennan to that seat. Eisenhower sought a Catholic to appoint to the Court—in part because there had been no Catholic justice since Murphy's death in 1949, and in part because Eisenhower was directly lobbied by Cardinal Francis Spellman of the Archdiocese of New York to make such an appointment.[91] Brennan was then the lone Catholic justice until the appointment of Antonin Scalia in 1986, and Anthony Kennedy in 1988.

Like Sherman Minton, Clarence Thomas was not a Catholic at the time he was appointed to the Court. Thomas was raised Catholic and briefly attended Conception Seminary College, a Roman Catholic seminary,[92] but had joined the Protestant denomination of his wife after their marriage. At some point in the late 1990s, Thomas returned to Catholicism. In 2005, John Roberts became the third Catholic Chief Justice and the fourth Catholic on the Court. Shortly thereafter, Samuel Alito became the fifth on the Court, and the eleventh in the history of the Court. Alito's appointment gave the Court a Catholic majority for the first time in its history. Besides Thomas, at least one other Justice, James F. Byrnes, was raised as a Roman Catholic, but converted to a different branch of Christianity prior to serving on the Court.

In contrast to historical patterns, the Court has gone from having a "Catholic seat" to being what some have characterized as a "Catholic court." The reasons for that are subject to debate, and are a matter of intense public scrutiny.[93] That the majority of the Court is now Catholic, and that the appointment of Catholics has become accepted, represents a historical 'sea change.' It has fostered accusations that the court has become "a Catholic boys club" (particularly as the Catholics chosen tend to be politically conservative) and calls for non-Catholics to be nominated.[94]

In May 2009, President Barack Obama nominated a Catholic woman, Sonia Sotomayor, to replace retiring Justice David Souter.[95] Her confirmation raised the number of Catholics on the Court to six, compared to three non-Catholics. With Antonin Scalia's death in February 2016, the number of Catholic Justices went back to five. Neil Gorsuch, appointed in 2017, was raised Catholic but attends and is a member of an Episcopal church; it is unclear if he identifies as a Catholic as well as belonging to the Episcopal Church.[79] With Anthony Kennedy's retirement in July 2018, the number of Catholic Justices went down by one, and returned to its previous number with the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh.

All of the Catholic justices have been members of the Roman (or Latin) rite within the Catholic Church.

Graphical timeline of Catholic justices:

Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Justice.

In 1853, President Millard Fillmore offered to appoint Louisiana Senator Judah P. Benjamin to be the first Jewish justice, and The New York Times reported (on February 15, 1853) that "if the President nominates Benjamin, the Democrats are determined to confirm him". However, Benjamin declined the offer, and ultimately became Secretary of State for the Confederacy during the Civil War. The first Jewish nominee, Louis Brandeis, was appointed in 1916, after a tumultuous hearing process. The 1932 appointment of Benjamin Cardozo raised mild controversy for placing two Jewish justices on the Court at the same time, although the appointment was widely lauded based on Cardozo's qualifications, and the Senate was unanimous in confirming Cardozo.[98] Most Jewish Supreme Court justices were of Ashkenazi Jewish descent, with the exception of Cardozo, who was Sephardic. None of the Jewish Supreme Court Justices have practiced Orthodox Judaism while on the Court, although Abe Fortas was raised Orthodox.[99]

Cardozo was succeeded by another Jewish Justice, Felix Frankfurter, but Brandeis was succeeded by Protestant William O. Douglas. Negative reaction to the appointment of the early Jewish justices did not exclusively come from outside the Court. Justice James Clark McReynolds, a blatant anti-semite, refused to speak to Brandeis for three years following the latter's appointment and when Brandeis retired in 1939, did not sign the customary dedicatory letter sent to Court members on their retirement. During Benjamin Cardozo's swearing in ceremony McReynolds pointedly read a newspaper muttering "another one" and did not attend that of Felix Frankfurter, exclaiming "My God, another Jew on the Court!"[100]

Frankfurter was followed by Arthur Goldberg and Abe Fortas, each of whom filled what became known as the "Jewish Seat". After Fortas resigned in 1969, he was replaced by Protestant Harry Blackmun. No Jewish justices were nominated thereafter until Ronald Reagan nominated Douglas H. Ginsburg in 1987, to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Lewis F. Powell; however, this nomination was withdrawn, and the Court remained without any Jewish justices until 1993, when Ruth Bader Ginsburg (unrelated to Douglas Ginsburg) was appointed to replace Byron White. Ginsburg was followed in relatively quick succession by the appointment of Stephen Breyer, also Jewish, in 1994 to replace Harry Blackmun. In 2010, the confirmation of President Barack Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan to the Court ensured that three Jewish justices would serve simultaneously. Prior to this confirmation, conservative political commentator Pat Buchanan stated that, "If Kagan is confirmed, Jews, who represent less than 2 percent of the U.S. population, will have 33 percent of the Supreme Court seats".[101] At the time of his remarks, 6.4 percent of justices had been Jewish in the history of the court.

Graphical timeline of Jewish justices:

With Breyer's appointment in 1994, there were two Roman Catholic justices, Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy, and two Jewish justices, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Clarence Thomas, who had been raised as a Roman Catholic but had attended an Episcopal church after his marriage, returned to Catholicism later in the 1990s. At this point, the four remaining Protestant justices—Rehnquist, Stevens, O'Connor, and Souter—remained a plurality on the Court, but for the first time in the history of the Court, Protestants were no longer an absolute majority.

The first Catholic plurality on the Court occurred in 2005, when Chief Justice Rehnquist was succeeded in office by Chief Justice John Roberts, who became the fourth sitting Catholic justice. On January 31, 2006, Samuel Alito became the fifth sitting Catholic justice, and on August 6, 2009, Sonia Sotomayor became the sixth. By contrast, there has been only one Catholic U.S. President, John F. Kennedy (unrelated to Justice Kennedy), and two Catholic U.S. Vice Presidents, Joe Biden and Mike Pence, and there has never been a Jewish U.S. President or Vice President.

At the beginning of 2010, Justice John Paul Stevens was the sole remaining Protestant on the Court.[95][102] In April 2010, Justice Stevens announced his retirement, effective as of the Court's 2010 summer recess. Upon Justice Stevens' retirement, which formally began on June 28, 2010, the Court lacked a Protestant member, marking the first time in its history that it was exclusively composed of Jewish and Catholic justices.[83] Although in January 2017, after seven years with no Protestant justices serving or nominated, President Donald Trump nominated Neil Gorsuch to the Court, as noted above it is unclear whether Gorsuch considers himself a Catholic or an Episcopalian.[103][79] Following the retirement of Justice Kennedy, the Catholic majority on the Court was extended by the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh,[104] leaving five Catholic members of the Court, or six if Gorsuch is demarcated as a "Catholic."[79]

This development led to some comment. Law school professor Jeffrey Rosen wrote that "it's a fascinating truth that we've allowed religion to drop out of consideration on the Supreme Court, and right now, we have a Supreme Court that religiously at least, by no means looks like America".[105]

A number of sizable religious groups, each less than 2% of the U.S. population,[106] have had no members appointed as justices. These include Orthodox Christians, Mormons, Pentecostals, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs. George Sutherland has been described as a "lapsed Mormon"[107] because he was raised in the LDS Church, his parents having immigrated to the United States during Sutherland's infancy to join that church.[108] Sutherland's parents soon left the LDS Church and moved to Montana.[108] Sutherland himself also disaffiliated with the faith, but remained in Utah and graduated from Brigham Young Academy in 1881, the only non-Mormon in his class.[109] In 1975, Attorney General Edward H. Levi had listed Dallin H. Oaks, a Mormon who had clerked for Earl Warren and was then president of Brigham Young University, as a potential nominee for Gerald Ford. Ford "crossed Oaks's name off the list early on, noting in the margin that a member of the LDS Church might bring a 'confirmation fight'".[110]

No professing atheist has ever been appointed to the Court, although some justices have declined to engage in religious activity, or affiliate with a denomination. As an adult, Benjamin Cardozo no longer practiced his faith and identified himself as an agnostic, though he remained proud of his Jewish heritage.[111]

Beginning in 1979, the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 required federal officials, including the justices, to file annual disclosures of their income and assets.[143] These disclosures provide a snapshot into the wealth of the justices, reported within broad ranges, from year to year since 1979. In the first such set of disclosures, only two justices were revealed to be millionaires: Potter Stewart[144] and Lewis F. Powell,[145] with Chief Justice Warren Burger coming in third with about $600,000 in holdings.[144] The least wealthy Justice was Thurgood Marshall.[144]

The 1982 report disclosed that newly appointed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor was a millionaire, and the second-wealthiest Justice on the Court (after Powell).[146] The remaining justices listed assets in the range of tens of thousands to a few hundred-thousand, with the exception of Thurgood Marshall, who "reported no assets or investment income of more than $100".[146] The 1985 report had the justices in relatively the same positions,[147] while the 1992 report had O'Connor as the wealthiest member of the Court, with Stevens being the only other millionaire, most other justices reporting assets averaging around a half million dollars, and the two newest justices, Clarence Thomas and David Souter, reporting assets of at least $65,000.[148] (In 2011, however, it was revealed that Thomas had misstated his income going back to at least 1989.[149][150][151])

The 2007 report was the first to reflect the holdings of John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Disclosures for that year indicated that Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy were the only justices who were clearly not millionaires, although Thomas was reported to have signed a book deal worth over one million dollars.[152] Other justices have reported holdings within the following ranges:[153][154]

The financial disclosures indicate that many of the justices have substantial stock holdings.[152] This, in turn, has affected the business of the Court, as these holdings have led justices to recuse themselves from cases, occasionally with substantial impact. For example, in 2008, the recusal of John Roberts in one case, and Samuel Alito in another, resulted in each ending in a 4–4 split, which does not create a binding precedent.[155] The Court was unable to decide another case in 2008 because four of the nine justices had conflicts, three arising from stock ownership in affected companies.[156]