Legal News

All Eyes Increasingly on Justice John Paul Stevens

By Ashby Jones

Ah, what a weekend. Pasty-skin east-coasters got some badly needed sunshine; southern Californians rocked, rolled and swayed to a pretty big temblor, and folks finally got their hands on the iPad.

Something else we all got: a spate of new stories on Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. The main things we learned: 1) Justice Stevens has still, since his recent interview with the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin, not decided whether he’s going to step down soon; 2) the Court will be different with Justice Stevens gone, despite the fact that Stevens’s replacement won’t tip the court’s liberal/conservative split; and 3) the slate of front running candidates to replace Stevens hasn’t changed much in recent weeks: the shortest of short lists still includes three names: Solicitor General Elena Kagan, Seventh Circuit judge Diane Wood, and D.C. Circuit judge Merrick Garland.

Click here for Jess Bravin’s story in the WSJ, which spotlights the fact that once Stevens is gone, a “liberal” justice won’t have the chance to speak during the court’s private meetings until several justices have already spoken; here for Adam Liptak’s story at the NYT, which reports that Stevens’s “calculus seemed to be weighted toward departure, and he said his decision on the matter would come very soon”; here for the WaPo story; here for the Bloomberg story, which reports the names of the three candidates President Obama is thinking of tapping to replace Stevens if and when he announces his retirement.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 05, 2010 (boomark / email).