Samuel A. Alito Jr. (born April 2, 1950) is a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. His ideological likeness to United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia has earned him the nickname "Scalito."

Alito was born in Trenton, New Jersey. He graduated from Princeton University with an A.B. in 1972, and went to Yale Law School, where he earned a J.D. in 1975. From 1981 to 1985 he was assistant to Solicitor General Rex E. Lee, and was deputy assistant to the Attorney General Edwin Meese from 1985 to 1987. After a brief stint as U.S. Attorney for the district of New Jersey, he was nominated by George H. W. Bush in 1990 to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. His chambers are in Newark, New Jersey.

Former U.S. attorney; some liberals have dubbed him "Scalito" or "Scalia lite" for his similarly conservative views and pointedly written rulings. Women's rights groups point to a Pennsylvania law he voted to uphold requiring women to tell their husbands before having an abortion. The Supreme Court struck down the law in 1992.

With the announced retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in 2005, Alito was widely reported as being narrowly passed-over as her replacement by the Bush Administration, having been edged-out by close personal Bush aide and confidant, Harriet Miers. With Miers's nomination withdrawn on October 27, 2005 following opposition from both Democrats and conservative Republicans, Alito was nominated by President Bush on October 31st as an associate justice for the Supreme Court.

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