2026-10-05T09:03:53-0400 / 哥伦比亚广播公司新闻
华盛顿讯 —— 大法官塞缪尔·阿利特与CBS新闻首席法律记者简·克劳福德进行了座谈，议题涵盖诸多方面，包括他在最高法院的未来、他撰写的推翻罗伊诉韦德案的多数意见，以及两党政治领袖的过激言论。
此次罕见采访安排在阿利特的首本著作《如此规制：原旨主义者眼中的宪法、最高法院与我们的国家》出版前夕，该书收录了他的多篇演讲，将于本周二正式发行。
最高法院已于周一开启新的庭审期，将审理涉及特朗普总统移民政策、亚利桑那州选举规则、各州禁止AR-15及其他半自动步枪法律合宪性等多起纠纷案件。
最高法院还可能受理涉及特朗普政策的其他法律诉讼，包括他对跨性别者参军的禁令，以及试图实质上关闭美墨边境避难申请通道的举措。
现年76岁的阿利特于今年1月迎来其在最高法院任职20周年纪念日，现已成为法院保守派阵营的领袖。如今他最广为人知的身份或许是2022年标志性判例多布斯诉杰克逊妇女健康组织案的主笔大法官，当时法院以5票对4票推翻了1973年确立联邦堕胎权的罗伊诉韦德案。在上一庭审期内，阿利特撰写了多数意见，推翻了路易斯安那州国会选区划分方案，并削弱了《投票权法案》第2条的效力。
阿利特在最高法院的未来
在上一庭审期内，外界广泛猜测阿利特的大法官生涯走向，以及他是否会在共和党仍控制参议院的情况下退休，让特朗普得以提名继任者。
阿利特由共和党总统乔治·W·布什提名任命至最高法院，大法官在与任命时同属一党的总统任期内退休并非罕见情况。
阿利特告诉克劳福德，他曾考虑过退休，但最终选择继续留任最高法院。
“我确实考虑过，”他说，“我认为到了我这个年纪，每个人每个任期都应该思考这个问题。但我觉得自己仍能做出有价值的贡献，这也是我当初成为大法官和法官的初衷。所以基本就是这个原因。”
当被问及留任最高法院可能面临的风险——即民主党总统填补其席位的可能性——阿利特驳斥了总统政治应左右这一决定的观点，称很难预测未来的政治格局。
“很难预测任何人的未来，尤其是到了一定年纪之后，很难说一年后、两年后自己的处境会如何，”他说，“同样也很难预测政治局势会如何发展，以及任何总统会如何处理继任人选问题。”
已故大法官露丝·巴德·金斯伯格作为法院自由派阵营的核心人物，曾在巴拉克·奥巴马总统任期内拒绝退休请求，直至2020年去世。时任总统第一任期的特朗普随后任命艾米·科尼·巴雷特填补空缺，将最高法院保守派多数优势扩大至6比3。
巴雷特随后与阿利特一同加入多数意见，作出终结宪法堕胎权的5比4裁决。
政治领袖的言论转变
近几届庭审期内，随着最高法院深入审理堕胎、平权行动、枪支、总统豁免权及监管权力等棘手议题，两党政治领袖对最高法院的批评声浪不断升级，开始公开抨击个别大法官。
2020年，最高法院审理一起涉及路易斯安那州要求堕胎医生需在附近医院拥有接诊特权的法案时，参议院少数党领袖查克·舒默在法院外的集会上对布雷特·卡瓦诺大法官和尼尔·戈萨奇大法官放话：“我要告诉你们，戈萨奇，我要告诉你们卡瓦诺，你们已经引发了风暴，必将付出代价。如果你们继续推进这些糟糕的裁决，你们根本不知道会发生什么。”
这一言论引发了首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨罕见的公开反驳。
阿利特表示，两党政客的言论可能“极具破坏性”。
“总统们在不满最高法院裁决时的言论已经发生了巨大变化，”他告诉克劳福德，“传统上，总统们会说‘最高法院已经作出裁决，我不同意，但我们必须遵守’。仅此而已。这就是当时总统们的说法，内阁成员们也是这么说的。但现在情况变了。”
特朗普曾批评保守派大法官在涉及他标志性第二任期政策的案件中作出不利于他的裁决，包括他对几乎所有美国贸易伙伴征收关税的举措，以及试图限制出生公民权的尝试。上个月，在紧急审理的一起案件中，最高法院在法律程序继续推进期间叫停了美国邮政总局针对邮寄选票的新规则。在上述每一起案件中，阿利特都投了反对票。
特朗普称投票反对其大规模关税政策的巴雷特和戈萨奇为“名义共和党人（RINO）和激进左翼民主党人的傻瓜和走狗”。RINO是“名义上的共和党人”的缩写。
在邮寄选票裁决公布后，特朗普针对他任命的戈萨奇、卡瓦诺和巴雷特三名大法官表示：“这些人不是我面试过要担任美国最高法院大法官的人选，他们只不过是原本自我的空壳而已。”
阿利特表示，对最高法院的批评是“两党共同努力的结果”。
当被问及特朗普的言论时，这位大法官特别指出：“他有自己的说话方式。但对法院的批评——我想公正地看待这个问题——拜登总统及其政府对法院的批评也非常严厉。特朗普总统的批评同样尖锐。”
不过特朗普曾称赞阿利特和克拉伦斯·托马斯大法官是“传奇人物”，并特别称阿利特是“有史以来最伟大的大法官之一”。
但阿利特驳斥了大法官们受政治动机驱使的说法。
“我们不属于任何政治运动，也不试图推动任何政治议程，”阿利特在谈到总统的言论时表示，“我们正尽力解释宪法，并将其适用于提交给我们的案件。”
多布斯案裁决的后续影响
在最高法院就多布斯案作出裁决前，一份裁决草案被泄露并由《政客》杂志发表。此次泄密事件前所未有，不久后，抗议者聚集在投票支持推翻罗伊案的保守派大法官包括阿利特的住所外。
根据法庭记录，2022年6月，一名加利福尼亚州武装男子在卡瓦诺位于马里兰州的住所外被捕，警方在其身上发现枪支、弹药、刀具和各类工具，以及带软垫鞋底的徒步靴。检察官后来披露，尼古拉斯·罗斯克意图刺杀三名最高法院大法官，以“通过暴力手段单方面、不可逆转地改变美国政府的一个完整分支”。
罗斯克承认企图暗杀卡瓦诺，最终被判处八年监禁。
如今，大法官们出行时配有安保人员，住所外也有执法人员值守。巴雷特曾谈及自己获配防弹背心一事。在最新提交给国会的预算申请中，最高法院请求额外拨款1460万美元，用于扩大最高法院警察局为大法官提供的安保服务。
“这是工作的一部分，你在有争议的案件中作出裁决必然会惹恼一些人，因为其中一方或另一方会因为你的裁决而极度厌恶你，”阿利特说，“人身威胁和骚扰是我们社会中出现的新现象，非常令人不安。我认为这是一种危险。这对法院是一种威胁，对其他公共生活参与者也是一种威胁。”
最高法院大法官埃琳娜·卡根今年7月告诉议员们，最高法院警察局预计2026年的威胁事件将增加38%。
当被问及是否有哪起案件需要阿利特展现勇气时，他以推翻罗伊案的裁决为例，表示自己因该裁决失去了一些朋友。
“最典型的例子就是多布斯案，”他说，“我认为这需要多数意见方所有大法官拿出勇气。当然，实际上当时——我们在发布泄露的草案时并不知情——但因为裁决可能带来的影响，继续推进这项工作确实需要勇气。这就是一个例子。还有其他案件。我的意思是，有些案件导致我失去了多年的旧交。这是你必须面对的事情。”
同性婚姻权的未来
最高法院公布堕胎裁决将问题交由各州处理后，托马斯大法官撰写了协同意见，呼吁法院重新审议部分先例，包括奥贝格费尔诉霍奇斯案。在这一标志性判例中，最高法院裁定宪法保护同性婚姻权。
当时没有其他大法官加入托马斯的协同意见，但这引发了人们对2015年这项裁决有可能被推翻的担忧。
尽管阿利特在奥贝格费尔案中投了反对票，但他在多布斯案的裁决意见中写道：“本意见中的任何内容都不应被理解为对与堕胎无关的先例产生质疑。”
阿利特向克劳福德表示，奥贝格费尔案的法律基础依然稳固。
“我们在决定是否重新审查过往判决时，会考虑一个重要因素，即该判决被依赖的程度，”他说，“显然，奥贝格费尔案的判决结果让美国社会发生了巨大变化。人们在诸多方面对该判决形成了大量依赖。”
尽管如此，罗伊诉韦德案于1973年作出裁决，推翻该判决对女性获得堕胎服务的权利产生了重大影响。多布斯案裁决以来，已有13个州实施了近乎全面的堕胎禁令，另有7个州在怀孕18周及之前限制堕胎手术。
但阿利特表示，奥贝格费尔案与罗伊案存在区别。
“奥贝格费尔案判决后，同性伴侣结婚并签订合同……这要具体得多，”他说，“而罗伊案的论点是，它会影响人们的观念，女性对自己将要生活的社会的看法，这会对社会产生影响。这比我们被要求推翻奥贝格费尔案所涉及的情况要抽象得多。”
公众的认可度
与国会不同，最高法院法庭内不允许安装摄像机，大法官们公开露面时，听众往往是其他律师、法学院学生或法官。
阿利特表示，他很少在公共场合被人认出，但开玩笑说这种情况可能会改变。
“我确信这段采访播出后，我会被更多人认出来，”他说，“我的确认听证会结束后，被认出来的次数就多了很多。也发生过一些有趣的插曲，有人认出了我。”
阿利特回忆起一次在从华盛顿特区驾车前往新泽西州的途中停车喝咖啡时遇到的男子。
“这家伙在休息区走到我面前说，‘我认识你，我知道你是谁，但就是想不起名字。别告诉我，让我想想。我肯定认识你，’”阿利特回忆道，“这个过程持续了一会儿。最后他还是想不起来为什么觉得认识我。我问他，‘你是做什么的？’他说，‘我是特拉华州的一名殡仪员。’所以我当时想，‘好吧，我肯定让他想起了他经手过的某个尸体。’”
完整采访将于周一在《CBS晨间新闻》和《CBS晚间新闻》播出。简·克劳福德是美国顶尖的最高法院问题专家之一。在其30年职业生涯中，她曾采访过多位大法官，其著作《最高法院的较量：掌控美国最高法院斗争的内幕故事》曾登上《纽约时报》畅销书榜。
Takeaways from Alito’s CBS News interview: His future on the Supreme Court, opinion in Dobbs and rise in heated political rhetoric
2026-10-05T09:03:53-0400 / CBS News
Washington — Justice Samuel Alito sat down with CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford for discussions touching on a host of issues, including his future on the Supreme Court, his majority opinion in the case that overturned Roe v. Wade and the charged rhetoric of political leaders from both parties.
The rare interview came ahead of the release of Alito’s first book, “So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court and Our Country,” a collection of speeches that will be released Tuesday.
The Supreme Court began its new term Monday, and will hear cases on President Trump’s immigration agenda, voting rules in Arizona and the constitutionality of state laws banning AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles, among other disputes.
The high court could also decide to take up other legal battles involving Mr. Trump’s policies, including his ban on transgender people in the military and attempt to effectively shut down asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Alito, 76, marked his 20th year on the Supreme Court in January and has emerged as the leader of the court’s conservative wing. He may perhaps best be known today as the author of the landmark 2022 decision in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which the court ruled 5-4 to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that established the federal right to an abortion. In the Supreme Court’s last term, Alito wrote the majority opinion that struck down Louisiana’s congressional map and weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
Alito’s future on the court
During the Supreme Court’s last term, there was much speculation about Alito’s future as a justice and whether he would step down and allow Mr. Trump to nominate a successor while Republicans still control the Senate.
Alito was appointed to the high court by President George W. Bush, a Republican, and it is not unusual for justices to retire during the presidential administration of the same party as the one in office when they were named to the Supreme Court.
Alito told Crawford that he had considered retiring but ultimately opted to remain on the high court.
“I thought about it,” he said. “It’s something I think that somebody at my age has to think about every term. But I thought that I could still make a valuable contribution, which is why I became a justice and a judge in the first place. So that was basically it.”
Pressed on the potential risks of remaining on the Supreme Court — namely, the possibility of a Democratic president filling his seat — Alito rejected the idea that presidential politics should play a role in that decision, saying it is too difficult to say what the political landscape will be.
“It’s too hard to predict how, for anybody, and particularly when you reach a certain age, what your situation will be a year from now, two years from now, and so forth,” he said. “And it’s too hard to predict what the political situation will be and what any president might do with respect to a replacement.”
The late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who anchored the court’s liberal wing, resisted calls to retire during President Barack Obama’s administration and remained on the court until her death in 2020. Mr. Trump, then in his first term, appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett to fill the vacancy, expanding the Supreme Court’s conservative majority to 6-3.
Barrett would go on to join Alito in the majority in the 5-4 decision that ended the constitutional right to abortion.
Changes in rhetoric from political leaders
In recent terms, as the Supreme Court has waded into thorny issues like abortion, affirmative action, guns, presidential immunity and regulatory power, political leaders on both sides of the aisle have ratcheted up their criticisms of the high court and begun denouncing individual justices.
In 2020, as the Supreme Court convened to hear a case involving a Louisiana law that required doctors providing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer delivered a message to Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch during a rally outside the court: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”
The comment prompted rare public pushback from Chief Justice John Roberts.
Alito said the language from politicians on both sides of the aisle can be “quite damaging.”
“There’s been a great change in what presidents have said about the court when they are unhappy about our decisions,” he told Crawford. “Traditionally, what presidents would say is, ‘The Supreme Court, it’s made its decision. I disagree with it, but we have to abide by it.’ And that was it. That’s what presidents said. That’s what members of the Cabinet said. That has changed.”
Mr. Trump has chastised the conservative justices who have ruled against him in cases involving some of his signature second-term policies, including his tariffs on nearly every U.S. trading partner and his attempt to restrict birthright citizenship. Last month, in a case on its emergency docket, the Supreme Court blocked new U.S. Postal Service rules for mail ballots while legal proceedings continue. In each of those cases, Alito dissented.
The president called Barrett and Gorsuch, who voted to strike down his sweeping tariffs, “fools and lapdogs for the RINO and the radical left Democrats.” RINOs is short for “Republicans in name only.”
After the mail-ballot decision, Mr. Trump said of the three justices he appointed, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, “these are not the people I interviewed to serve on the United States Supreme Court, they are merely a shell of their original selves.”
Alito said criticism of the court has been “a bipartisan effort.”
Pressed on Mr. Trump’s language, specifically, the justice said, “He has his own way of saying things. But the criticism of the court — I mean, I wanna be even-handed on this. The criticism of the court by President Biden and justices, by President Biden and his administration, was very harsh. And President Trump has been very harsh.”
Mr. Trump, however, has praised Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas as “legends,” and called Alito specifically “one of the greatest of all time.”
But Alito resisted any suggestion that the justices are motivated by politics.
“Well, we are not part of any political movement, and we are not attempting to further any political agenda,” Alito said of the president’s comments. “We are trying to interpret the Constitution as best we can and apply it in the cases that come before us.”
Fallout from the Dobbs decision
Before the Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs, a draft of the opinion leaked and was published by Politico. The leak was unprecedented, and soon after, protesters descended on the homes of the conservative justices who voted to roll back Roe, including Alito’s.
An armed California man was arrested outside of Kavanaugh’s Maryland home in June 2022 and found with a gun, ammunition, a knife and various tools, as well as hiking boots with padding on the soles, according to court records. Prosecutors later revealed that Nicholas Roske wanted to kill three Supreme Court justices to “single-handedly and irrevocably to alter an entire branch of the United States government through violence.”
Roske pleaded guilty to attempting to assassinate Kavanaugh and was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Now, the justices travel with security details and have law enforcement outside their homes. Barrett has spoken about being given a bulletproof vest to wear. In its latest budget request to Congress, the Supreme Court asked for an additional $14.6 million to expand security for the justices provided by the Supreme Court Police.
“It’s part of the job that you’re gonna displease people by making decisions on controversial matters because one side or the other is gonna really dislike you because of the decisions,” Alito said. “The physical threats and the harassment represent something new in our society and something that’s quite disturbing. And I think it’s a danger. It’s a danger for the courts. And it’s a danger for others in public life.”
The Supreme Court Police is anticipating a 38% rise in threats for 2026, Justice Elena Kagan told lawmakers in July.
Asked about whether there was a case that required courage from Alito, he pointed to the decision reversing Roe and said he has lost friends over that ruling.
“The leading example is Dobbs,” he said. “I think that required courage by all of the justices in the majority. Of course, it actually involved — we didn’t know it at the time. We didn’t know it when we produced the draft that was leaked, but it required courage to go ahead with that because of the implications. That was an example. There are others. I mean, there are cases that have resulted in the loss of old friendships. And that’s something that you have to live with.”
The future of the right to same-sex marriage
When the Supreme Court released its decision on abortion, which left the issue to the states, Thomas authored a concurring opinion that called for the court to reconsider some of its precedents, including Obergefell v. Hodges. In that landmark decision, the Supreme Court said the Constitution protects the right to same-sex marriage.
No other justice joined Thomas’s opinion, but it led to concerns that the 2015 decision was at risk of being reversed.
While Alito dissented in Obergefell, he wrote in Dobbs that “nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”
Alito indicated to Crawford that Obergefell remains on firm legal footing.
“One of the important factors we take into account in deciding whether we should reexamine a past decision is the degree to which there has been reliance on the decision,” he said. “Obviously a great deal had changed in the country as a result of Obergefell. There was a lot of reliance in various ways on the decision in Obergefell.”
Still, Roe v. Wade had been decided in 1973, and overturning that decision has had significant impacts on women’s access to abortion. In the years since Dobbs was decided, 13 states have imposed near-total bans on abortion and another seven restrict the procedure either at or before 18 weeks of pregnancy.
But Alito said there are distinctions between Obergefell and Roe.
“After Obergefell, people of the same sex got married and entered into contracts … it was much more concrete,” he said. “Whereas with Roe, the argument was made that it had an effect on people’s ideas, women’s ideas about the kind of society that they were going to live in, that this would have an effect on the society. It was much more abstract than what would’ve been involved had we been asked to overrule Obergefell.”
Recognition by the public
Unlike Congress, there are no cameras in the Supreme Court’s courtroom, and when justices do appear at public events, they are often speaking to audiences of other lawyers, law students or judges.
Alito said he rarely gets recognized in public, but joked that may change.
“I’m sure after this is on television, I’ll be recognized more frequently,” he said. “I was recognized much more frequently after my confirmation hearings. And there were some, a few, interesting episodes with people who recognized me.”
Alito recalled one encounter with a man he met while stopping to get coffee on a drive from Washington, D.C., to New Jersey.
“This fellow came up to me in a rest stop and he said, ‘I know you. I know you but I can’t quite get the name. And don’t tell me. I’m thinking. I know you,’” Alito recalled. “And this went on for a little bit. And finally he couldn’t figure out why he thought he knew me. And I said, ‘What do you do?’ And he said, ‘I’m a funeral director in Delaware.’ So I thought, ‘Well, I must remind him of one of the corpses that he’s worked on.’”
Watch more of the interview Monday on “CBS Mornings” and “CBS Evening News.” Jan Crawford is one of the nation’s leading experts on the Supreme Court. She has interviewed multiple justices during her 30-year career, and her book “Supreme Conflict: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Control of the United States Supreme Court” was a New York Times bestseller.