Justice Neil Gorsuch
Supreme Court of the United States
Neil McGill Gorsuch was born in August 1967 in Denver, Colorado. He earned an undergraduate degree in political science from Columbia University and received his Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. He was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy in Law from the University of Oxford, where he completed research on assisted suicide and euthanasia. He was a judicial clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and then for Supreme Court Justices Byron White and Anthony Kennedy. He entered the private practice of law.
Gorsuch served briefly as Principal Deputy to the Associate Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice. He managed the Department’s Civil Division. President George W. Bush nominated Gorsuch to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. He was confirmed by a unanimous voice vote in the Senate and assumed his position in July 2006.
After the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, President Donald Trump announced the nomination of Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court. Hearings on his confirmation were tension-filled, and he was forwarded to the floor of the Senate a party-line vote of the Judiciary Committee. His nomination was debated on the floor of the Senate, and, in early April, he was confirmed. He received his commission on April 8, 2017.
Gorsuch is married to Louise, a British citizen he met at Oxford. They have two daughters. Raised a Catholic, Gorsuch attends an Episcopal church.
In the News…
Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch questioned the rationale behind the enforcement of a 1968 law prohibiting gun ownership by marijuana users, as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of the United States v. Hemani.
Justice Gorsuch pushed back on the federal government’s equivalency argument regarding colonial-era laws against public drunkenness. “John Adams took a tankard of hard cider with his breakfast every day. James Madison reportedly drank a pint of whiskey every day,” Justice Neil Gorsuch told the federal attorney. “Are they all habitual drunkards who would be property disarmed for life under your theory?”
Justice Gorsuch asked what the government’s stance was if someone took “one gummy bear with a medical prescription in Colorado? Disarm him for life?”
Referring to approximately half of the states’ at least partially legalizing marijuana, Justice Gorsuch said, “What do we do with the fact that marijuana is sort of illegal and sort of isn’t, and that the federal government itself is conflicted on this?”
Contact this Leader…
Did you pray for Justice Gorsuch today? You can let him know at:
The Honorable Justice Neil Gorsuch
Supreme Court of the United States
1 First Street NE
Washington, DC 20543
