Federal Judiciary

Stevens? era is ending

By Akin Gump Supreme Court Practice Group

UPDATE, 4 p.m.: The statements about Justice Stevens’ retirement from each of the seven other members of the Court and former Justices Souter and O’Connor are now here.

Dictated from the Chicago Midway Airport Terminal:

Closing one era and opening another, Justice John Paul Stevens notified President Obama on Friday that he will retire from the Court when the current Term ends, probably late in June.  Stevens made his decision public eleven days before he reached his ninetieth birthday, and about two years short of a date on which he would have become the longest serving justice in history.  Justice Stevens? letter to the president is here.

Stevens chose to make his retirement effective at the end of the Term, rather than waiting until a successor has been named by the president and approved by the Senate.  That choice puts much heavier pressure on both the president and the Democratic leaders of the Senate, because they will not have time to stretch out the process and have a new justice in place when the Court returns for its next term on October 4.

With Friday?s development, the Court was poised for a generational shift, ending its last remaining link to the days of liberal dominance of the tribunal, and, at the same time, removing from the bench the most committed liberal remaining among the nine.

Stevens, who began his career as a mostly unpredictable centrist on a liberal Court, migrated to the Court?s left over the years as new justices moved the Court noticeably to the right.  Stevens has been on the Court since 1975, arriving to serve with such liberal giants as Justices William J. Brennan and Thurgood Marshall.

It has been rumored for weeks that this would be Stevens? last Term as a justice, but he had largely kept his own counsel until recently, when he began discussing publicly the possibility that he would soon retire.  He had made it clear in recent interviews with news reporters that he intended to leave the Court while President Obama was in the White House, and that gave him the option of continuing to serve for two-plus more years.

It is almost universally expected that Republicans in the Senate, although a minority, will announce a sustained effort to prevent Senate approval of any nominee that President Obama sends up for confirmation.  Sensing that they have a chance of increasing their numbers in the Senate, the GOP minority there may even make an effort to delay the coming confirmation process until after a new election is held on November 2.

Among the potential nominees to the Stevens seat are U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan; a federal circuit court judge from Chicago, Diane P. Wood; and a federal circuit court judge in Washington, D.C., Merrick B. Garland.  Presumably, the president has not yet committed himself to any particular nominee, although the White House for weeks and perhaps longer has been preparing to move toward the selection of a successor, in anticipation of  Stevens? commonly expected retirement this Term.

Full post as published by SCOTUSBLOG on April 09, 2010 (boomark / email).