Births on January 27

John Roberts, American lawyer and judge, 17th Chief Justice of the United States

John Glover Roberts Jr. (born January 27, 1955) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as the 17th chief justice of the United States since 2005. Roberts has authored the majority opinion in several landmark cases, including Shelby County v. Holder, National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, King v. Burwell, Department of Commerce v. New York, and Department of Homeland Security v. Regents of the University of California. He has been described as having a conservative judicial philosophy but has shown a willingness to work with the Supreme Court's liberal bloc, and since the retirement of Anthony Kennedy in 2018 has come to be regarded as a swing vote on the Court. Roberts presided over the first impeachment trial of Donald Trump in early 2020; however, he declined to preside over the second impeachment trial of Trump, who was impeached as president, but whose term had expired by the time of the trial.Roberts grew up in northwestern Indiana and was educated in Catholic schools. He studied history at Harvard University and then attended Harvard Law School, where he was managing editor of the Harvard Law Review. He served as a law clerk for Circuit Judge Henry Friendly and then-associate justice William Rehnquist before taking a position in the attorney general's office during the Reagan administration. He went on to serve the Reagan administration and the George H. W. Bush administration in the Department of Justice and the Office of the White House Counsel, during which he was nominated by George H. W. Bush to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but no vote on his nomination was held. Roberts then spent 14 years in private law practice. During this time, he argued 39 cases before the Supreme Court. Notably, he represented 19 states in United States v. Microsoft Corp.Roberts became a federal judge in 2003, when President George W. Bush appointed him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. During his two-year tenure on the D.C. Circuit, Roberts authored 49 opinions, eliciting two dissents from other judges, and authoring three dissents of his own. In 2005, Bush nominated Roberts to the Supreme Court, initially to be an associate justice to fill the vacancy left by the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. Chief Justice William Rehnquist died shortly afterward, however, before Roberts's Senate confirmation hearings had begun. Bush then withdrew Roberts's nomination and instead nominated him to become Chief Justice, choosing Samuel Alito to replace O'Connor.