Legal News

Justice John Paul Stevens?s Retirement Letter

By Ashby Jones

Just so anyone out there doesn’t think this is some one-week-later April Fool’s Day joke, here’s Justice John Paul Stevens’s retirement letter, dated April 9, 2010.

The letter reads:

My dear Mr. President:

Having concluded that it would be in the best interests of the Court to have my successor appointed and confirmed well in advance of the commencement of the Court’s next Term, I shall retire from regular active service as an Associate Justice, under the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 371(b), effective the next day after the Court rises for the summer recess this year.

Most respectfully yours,
[signed] John Paul Stevens

And we know there are some LBers out there, who are wondering about this 28 U.S.C. § 371(b). Fair enough. It’s the provision of the U.S. code that establishes that once certain requirements are met, retiring federal justices can continue to receive the “salary of the office.”

Subsection (b)(1) reads:

(b)(1) Any justice or judge of the United States appointed to hold office during good behavior may retain the office but retire from regular active service after attaining the age and meeting the service requirements . . . shall, during the remainder of his or her lifetime, continue to receive the salary of the office if he or she meets the requirements of subsection (e). [n.b. Subsection (e) lays out the minimum workload required of judges to receive their pensions.]

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on April 09, 2010 (boomark / email).