Justice John Paul Stevens to Retire

[National Kato]

The Supreme Court's oldest member, Justice John Paul Stevens, has announced he is retiring this summer. His retirement has been previously hinted at and this announcement comes 11 days prior to his 90th birthday.

President Obama's now has his second Supreme Court seat to fill.

Jeffrey Toobin, lawyer, author, and legal analyst for CNN and the New Yorker, weighs in:

Stevens is an unlikely liberal icon. When he was appointed, he told me recently, he thought of himself as a Republican and always had—“ever since my father voted for Coolidge and Harding.” He declined to say whether he still does. For many decades, there have been moderate Republicans on the Court—John M. Harlan II and Potter Stewart (appointed by Eisenhower), Lewis F. Powell and Harry Blackmun (Nixon), David H. Souter (Bush I). Stevens is the last of them, and his departure will mark a cultural milestone. The moderate-Republican tradition that he came out of “goes way back,” Stevens said. “But things have changed.”

So has Stevens. His positions have evolved on such issues as civil rights and the death penalty, and he has led the Court’s counteroffensive against the Bush Administration’s treatment of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay. And, as Stevens’s profile has risen, and his views have moved left, so, too, has criticism of him from conservatives reached a higher pitch. “From the beginning of his time as a Justice, you could see Stevens’s roots in the New Deal Court and his willingness to justify an expanding welfare state,” Richard Epstein, a libertarian-leaning law professor at New York University, said. “On these issues, he’s been consistent and consistently wrong about everything—and highly influential.”

Still, Stevens’s views suggest a sensibility more than a philosophy. Many great judicial legacies have a deep theoretical foundation—Oliver Wendell Holmes’s skeptical pragmatism, William J. Brennan’s aggressive liberalism, Scalia’s insistent originalism. Stevens’s lack of one raises questions about the durability of his influence on the Court.

But, more than anything, his career shows how the Court has become a partisan battlefield. In that spirit, Roberts last week denounced President Obama’s criticism of the Court in his State of the Union address, saying that the occasion had “degenerated to a political pep rally.” When Stevens leaves, the Supreme Court will be just another place where Democrats and Republicans fight.

[Serapth]

I hate all the hoopla and outcry over the appointment of new supreme court justices, it always seems to bring out the worst in people, especially 24 hour news networks.

Now, in this politically charged and horrifically misinformed climate, uh-fucking-oh. Bring on the nutjobs.

[roboninja]

Originally Posted by Serapth

Bring on the nutjobs.

Glenn Beck is going to need, like, 50 new markers.

[MagGnome]

Why do the two of you have the same avatar? It's confusing.

Anyway, this is interesting news. I look forward to see who the new appointee will be.

[Serapth]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

Why do the two of you have the same avatar? It's confusing.

Anyway, this is interesting news. I look forward to see who the new appointee will be.

Huh ?

[National Kato]

I've heard the following names bandied about in opinion columns over the past several days:

Solicitor General Elena Kagan

Seventh Circuit Judge Diane Wood

D.C. Circuit Judge Merrick Garland

[Saladin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Sheindlin IMHO

[MagGnome]

I would love having Judge Judy on the Supreme Court. It won't happen though.

Can you imagine the circus the media and Republicans would have?

[J Arcane]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

I would love having Judge Judy on the Supreme Court. It won't happen though.

Can you imagine the circus the media and Republicans would have?

Considering the conservative attitude she presented on the show, and her popularity with the family values crowd back when the show was on, I think the circus might not play out the way you think.

Of course, she was also appointed by a Democrat, Ed Koch, when she originally became a judge in New York.

So from a pure political theater standpoint, who knows how it would go?

[National Kato]

Solicitor General Elena Kagan has been nominated by President Obama for the Supreme Court.

[MagGnome]

No one is surprised.

[National Kato]

Elena Kagan has been confirmed by the Senate, 63-37, and will become a Supreme Court Justice. For the first time in history, three women will serve on the High Court at the same time.

[Serapth]

Originally Posted by National Kato

Elena Kagan has been confirmed by the Senate, 63-37, and will become a Supreme Court Justice. For the first time in history, three women will serve on the High Court at the same time.

We are so fucked.

[MagGnome]

That's great news!

Serapth, are you serious?

[Serapth]

Originally Posted by MagGnome

That's great news!

Serapth, are you serious?

Well, I can tell you, driving around the supreme court just got a whole lot more dangerous....

[Generation ABXY]

Originally Posted by Serapth

Well, I can tell you, driving around the supreme court just got a whole lot more dangerous....

Okay, that got a huge chuckle from me.

[roboninja]

I got 99 problems but a Justice ain't one.

[Bone]

Originally Posted by Serapth

We are so fucked.

Originally Posted by MagGnome

That's great news!

Originally Posted by MagGnome

Serapth, are you serious?

Originally Posted by Serapth

We are so fucked.

Fixed, for youse.

[AversionFX]

Originally Posted by Bone

Fixed, for youse.

Laughed. Hard.