Constitutional Law

Study Sheds Light On Supreme Court Retirements; Student Rankles Scalia With Question

A new study calls into question the conventional wisdom that Supreme Court judges strategically retire when there is an ideologically similar president in office. The study, by Terri Peretti and Alan Rozzi of Santa Clara University, found that retirement decisions were instead influenced by the justices’ power in steering the Court’s direction, and their sense of ideological mission.

Peretti and Rozzi maintain:

Specifically, Justices who are more ideologically distant from the Court median are less likely to retire, as are Justices who are writing more majority opinions and thus more engaged and influential in determining the content of the Court's doctrines. We find that justices are less inclined to leave the bench when fulfilling an ideological mission by "fighting the good fight" from the wings or when steering the Court by writing majority opinions that shape legal policy.

The report concluded that only about half of the justices retiring since 1953 did so under “co-partisan” presidents. More facts from the report can be found at the National Law Journal and the WSJ Law Blog.

During a recent appearance at a Florida University, Justice Antonin Scalia had no occasion to address Supreme Court retirements, but he did become rankled when asked about his opposition to use of cameras at the high court.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported that political science major Sarah Jeck asked Scalia whether his opposition to cameras at the Supreme Court was "vitiated" by the facts that the Court releases full argument transcripts, the public can attend oral arguments and that justices go out on book tours. 

"Read the next question," Scalia replied. "That's a nasty, impolite question."
 

The Palm Beach Post noted that after several reporters returned to the issue, Scalia did address it, saying he once favored televised Supreme Court proceedings, but now he thinks that "most people will only see 30-second takeouts" that could be misleading.

"Why should I be a party to the miseducation of the American people?" Scalia said.

According to an interview with The Blog of Legal Times, The Florida Atlantic University junior seemed a “little stunned, but not cowed,” by Scalia’s reaction. "He can dish it out, but he can't take it, I guess," she said. "I'm generally a very polite person. I'm really surprised the way it turned out. It was not a preposterous question."

Full post as published by ACS Blog on February 05, 2009 (boomark / email).