After just shy of 28 years on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Breyer is making his retirement official.
Earlier this afternoon, Breyer notified the White House that his retirement would commence tomorrow at noon Eastern Time.
In a letter to President Biden, Breyer called his time on the court a “great honor” and expressed his appreciation for presiding over cases that “maintain our Constitution and the Rule of Law.”
Though he amassed a reputation as a careful pragmatist, Breyer had a long and well-known history of opposing pro-life laws and actions.
Constitution Daily has more on the outgoing justice’s transformative rulings:
Among his noteworthy majority opinions were National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning (2014), where Breyer wrote for the court to clarify the president’s limited role in making recess appointments. In Stenberg v. Carhart (2000), Breyer wrote for a 5-4 majority that concluded that a Nebraska law that limited abortion was unconstitutional. In 2015, Breyer’s dissent in Glossip v. Gross asked the court to re-examine the constitutionality of the death penalty. Breyer believed the death penalty violated the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment, based on statistics compiled since the court upheld capital punishment in 1976. “For it is those changes, taken together with my own 20 years of experience on this Court, that lead me to believe that the death penalty, in and of itself, now likely constitutes a legally prohibited ‘cruel and unusual punishment,’” wrote Breyer in his dissent.
CNN reports on the court’s next steps as its latest momentous term winds down:
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson will then take the oaths to begin her service as the 116th member of the court.
On his last full day as a sitting justice, Breyer attended a private conference session with his colleagues Wednesday. The justices reviewed a list of pending petitions, some tied to cases in which they had recently ruled, some related to new issues.
Following tradition, Breyer will keep an office at the court, though he will move into smaller chambers
This article originally appeared in American Liberty News. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of The Republican Standard. Republished with permission.
