In a follow-up to the work I’ve co-authored on Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices, I’ve been looking at the effects of any US Supreme Court retirements on the overall age and tenure distribution on the Supreme Court.
Many people assume that, if a Democrat wins the White House in 2008, there might be one or more resignations from the more liberal half of the Court in 2009 or 2010. Although it might seem that the oldest member of the Court, Justice John Paul Stevens (age 87), would be the likeliest to step down, those with better sources of information than I have say that Justice Stevens is still extremely bright and funny and appears to outsiders to be in excellent health. Since physically and mentally he appears to be going very strong, some observers have speculated that Justice Stevens may well stay on the Court at least until he breaks Justice Douglas