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While there are always rumors around about Supreme Court justices retiring, especially after releasing their final decisions of the term, it was a genuine surprise when NPR reported that “Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, retires.”
It was an even bigger surprise, minutes later, when it became clear the report was a mistake. The folks at SCOTUSblog — who were still running a liveblog about this morning’s decisions — expressed their own skepticism about the report. Then they confirmed that NPR chief Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg, who has previously broken stories of justices’ retirements, said it was a mistake.
Not long after, NPR took down the article and posted a retraction in its place.
“Earlier today, we erroneously published a story saying that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring,” NPR wrote in additional note. “Neither Alito nor the court’s public information office has announced his retirement, and we have retracted the story.”
NPR editor in chief Tommy Evans then offered a longer explanation. He said that Totenberg “incorrectly reported” the news and has reached out to Alito to apologize. He also said she would “explain what happened” later today on All Things Considered.
The New York Times’s Benjamin Mullin reports that the Alito story did go through an editing process:
The article went through an extra layer of editing, known at NPR as “the backstop,” according to two people familiar with the process. NPR added that layer in 2024 as a final line of defense against errors before publication. But because the article cited an announcement, rather than confidential sources, the network did not take additional steps to verify the accuracy of the information, the people said.
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2024 that Alito had no plans to retire. But if a conservative justice were to retire, they’d presumably do so while a Republican has control of the senate, as is the case now — but may not be this time next year. That’s why the sight of Clarence Thomas strolling through the Capitol ignited speculation on Monday.
This post has been updated.
