Five Facts You Need to Know About Anthony Kennedy's Retirement
Last week, Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy announced he would retire from the bench effective July 31. This historic event allows President Trump to fill a rare vacancy on an evenly divided court. Issues that deeply divide Americans, including abortion rights, gay marriage, and health care could be impacted by this decision.
Here are five facts on Justice Kennedy’s retirement:
1. Justice Kennedy served on the Court for 30 years, having been appointed by President Ronald Reagan in February 1988. The average number of years a justice serves is 16, slightly more than half of Justice Kennedy’s tenure on the court. The longest serving justice was William O. Douglas, who was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 and served for more than 36 years. The longest serving chief justice was John Marshall, who was appointed by President John Adams in 1801 and served for over 34 years.
2. Kennedy wrote the majority opinion for a number of landmark cases, including Roper v. Simmons in 2005, which declared unconstitutional the execution of people under 18 for committing murder, and United States v. Windsor in 2013, which ended part of the Defense of Marriage Act. Justice Kennedy also wrote a number of influential dissenting opinions, including Hibbs v. Winn in 2004, which challenged a tax credit program that subsidized religious education in Arizona, and Grutter v. Bollinger in 2003, which upheld affirmative action at colleges and universities.
3. Although the Supreme Court is a lifetime appointment, most modern-day justices retire like Kennedy. According to The Washington Post, between 1955 and 2005, when Chief Justice William Rehnquist died, not a single Supreme Court justice died while sitting on the bench. A 2015 Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that two-thirds of Americans support a 10-year term limit for Supreme Court justices.
4. In the modern era, extended vacancies on the Supreme Court are rare. The longest gap was between April 1844 and August 1846 to fill Justice Henry Baldwin’s seat following his death. The shortest gap was just one day in October 1958 to fill Justice Harold Burton’s seat. However, on average, vacancies between 1791 and 2010 lasted for 121 days.
5. Today, six of the nine Supreme Court justices have gone to Harvard Law School — the institution that has produced the most justices of any law school. Over the years, Harvard Law has sent 20 alumni to the Supreme Court; Yale Law School has sent 10 alumni; and Columbia Law has sent seven alumni. According to U.S. News and World Report, of the 47 justices appointed to the court between 1916 and 2017, over half held Ivy League law degrees.
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