Who Retires Next: Supreme Court Retirement Rumors
By Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq.
Apr 21, 2008
nationalledger.com
(Stevens will hang on in the hope Obama is elected)
Who knows which rumor mill would win a contest for maximum error - the national media rumor mill or the Washington rumor mill (of course, profiling each generally)? The Supreme Court of the United States each spring approaches its date for adjournment of its so-called October Term, meaning its public sessions which commenced upon the first Monday the preceding October.
Who Retires Next: Supreme Court Retirement Rumors
This year that date probably will be Friday, June 27, 2008. Although perhaps not as expansively as in 2006 and 2007, the two mills again are giving vent to the rumor that Justice John Paul Stevens will announce retirement. Barring the Justice’s wholly unexpected and unlikely serious ill health, one would be better advised to bet otherwise.
The technically applicable longevity statistics are daunting but quite probably irrelevant. Justice Stevens was born 88 years ago yesterday. On November 16 of last year he became the second most elderly Justice in history, beating Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney by one day. However, until he were to reach 90 years of age he would not take the oldest-age record from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who retired (not so willingly) at 90 years, 10 months of age.
Further, Justice Stevens is serving only his 32nd year on the Court. Justice William O. Douglas served more than 36 years; Chief Justice John Marshall, Justice Stephen Field and Justice Hugo L. Black more than 34; Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justices John Marshall Harlan, William J. Brennan, Jr., and Joseph Story more than 33 years.
Justice Stevens and this writer belong to one of the same country clubs. He continues to play tennis. Those of us who know him, and far more so those who work closely with him, recognize his continued mental acuity. He is the only Justice who, with his four law clerks, does not participate in the so-called Certiorari Pool but within his Chambers causes all petitions for writs of certiorari to be reviewed. He also has the benefit of long paternal genes. Planning for the October 2008 Term, he has hired his 2008 - 2009 law clerks.
The foregoing is not to say this writer agrees with much of the more controversial Stevens jurisprudence, notwithstanding the undoubted scholarship and charm of their author. Rather, this commentary simply is another warning to the media and Washington rumor mills.
A comment upon another aspect: Can you imagine the liberal and obstructionist reaction of the United States Senate of the present, 110th Congress, to anybody whom President George W. Bush would nominate in this quadrennial election year? What hero of the type this writer and most readers of the column would want to see sitting for life among the Supremes would be confirmed? In light of the fact the Senate Majority Leadership blatantly and defiantly is holding open as many Federal judgeships as possible in the hope and expectation the 44th President and the 111th Senate will be liberal activist, who this summer or autumn could be confirmed?
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