Justice Anthony M. Kennedy announced Wednesday that he is retiring from the Supreme Court, a move that will give President Trump a chance to replace the pivotal justice and solidify a more conservative majority on the court that plays a crucial role in American life.
“It has been the greatest honor and privilege to serve our nation in the federal judiciary for 43 years, 30 of those years on the Supreme Court,” Kennedy, 81, said in a statement released in the afternoon of the last day of the term. He said his final day will be July 31.
Kennedy’s role at the center of a court equally balanced between more predictable conservatives and more consistent liberals made him the most essential member of the modern court.
His opinions often spoke of “dignity” and “liberty,” and his notions of how the Constitution provides for and protects them had an outsize effect on Americans.
Kennedy cast the deciding vote that found a constitutional right for same-sex couples to marry. He determined how far government may intrude on a woman’s right to an abortion; whether attempts to curtail the corrupting influence of campaign contributions violated free speech; and how and when it is appropriate for government to exercise affirmative action.
His decisions shielded juveniles and the intellectually disabled from the death penalty, although he refused to find capital punishment unconstitutional. He found that those seized in the fight against terrorism had rights in U.S. courts. And that is only a partial list of the issues on which he was key.
His retirement had been rumored. The lifelong Republican was openly encouraged by conservatives who long for a more reliable vote to leave now, while his party controls the White House and the Senate.
Democrats and liberals, who thought of him as the best they could hope for, begged him to stay.
There seems little doubt that his successor will be more aligned with the right.
“An already right-leaning Supreme Court is poised to become the most conservative institution in the entire history of America’s government,” said Thomas C. Goldstein, a Washington lawyer and founder of SCOTUSblog.com.
“Justice Kennedy was the last obstacle to reshaping our law on a host of hot-button issues.”
Read the full story at The Washington Post
