Alito's missing senior thesis at Princeton recovered

The senior thesis of Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito '72, which along with some 300 others was lost during the 1970s, resurfaced Monday when Alito's thesis adviser provided a copy to the University.

Walter Murphy, the McCormick Professor in Jurisprudence Emeritus, sent a copy of the thesis, which concerned the Italy's highest court, to the University's Mudd Manuscript Library. The document's preface was made available Monday night, and the full 134-page document will be available today.

Murphy was first quoted as saying Alito opposes Roe v. Wade. Murphy now says he was misquoted.

In an interview with The Daily Princetonian on Monday, Murphy said that Alito's thesis was one of only about a half-dozen he kept over the years because of the quality of its scholarship.

"Sam just had to start from scratch," he said. "I remember [the thesis] was very good. I've used it over the years in my work."

Murphy, who has kept in touch with Alito over the years and has invited him to guest lecture in classes, also offered some impressions of Alito's stances on key judicial questions.

"He is much more an Anti-federalist where state and national authority clash, more libertarian on issues such as gun control, and much tighter on some matters as the rights of the criminally accused than I," Murphy said in an earlier email message.

"We, however, agree on other important issues, such as finding no constitutional barrier to bans on late term abortions and requiring spousal and parental notification of impending abortions."