Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito touched on two lightning rod cases Friday in explaining the pitfalls and promises of originalism.

The conservative justice mentioned the Obergefell ruling that legalized same-sex marriage and the sweeping presidential immunity ruling the court handed down last year as he opined about how adherents to his legal theory of choice can go astray.

Originalism, which several justices on the high court embrace, aims to follow the Constitution as it would have been understood when it was written.

Alito described himself as a “working judicial originalist,” or a judge who “strives to achieve originalist aims while working within the framework of our legal system.”

It's a perspective best understood through the process of elimination, he said, asking the small crowd at the annual conference held by Antonin Scalia Law School’s Center for the Study of the Administrative State to envision an originalist judge driving down a highway with seven turn signs for off turns.

“Six of these, in my view, are definitely wrong turns, and........

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