Justice Stephen Breyer of the Supreme Court informed President Joe Biden that he will formally step down on Thursday at noon and immediately assist in the swearing-in of his replacement, Ketanji Brown Jackson, hours after the court is scheduled to announce its final two decisions for this term.
Given that the 83-year-old justice announced in January that he will retire at the conclusion of the court's term, Breyer's letter to Biden was anticipated. The court didn't announce Thursday as the final day for opinions to be issued until Wednesday morning.
Jackson, 51, who presently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, will take his seat right away. The Senate approved her nomination to the Supreme Court in April, making her the first Black woman to hold the position of judge.
Jackson will be sworn in as the 104th associate judge of the Supreme Court at noon on Thursday, the court's press office said on Wednesday.
Jackson will take the constitutional oath from Chief Justice John Roberts, and Stephen Breyer will give him the judicial oath at a ceremony at the court "before a small assembly of Judge Jackson's family," according to the press office.
It has been my great joy to contribute as a judge in the battle to safeguard our Constitution and the Rule of Law, Breyer said in his letter to Biden dated Wednesday.
Breyer, one of only three liberal justices on the nine-member Supreme Court, has been a member since 1994 when President Bill Clinton nominated him. More frequently than the court's six conservatives, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, Jackson is predicted to vote with them.
Six days after the Supreme Court, in a significant decision, reversed its 1973 rule in the case Roe v. Wade, which established that there was a constitutional right to abortion, Breyer's retirement will occur.
In a vehement dissent to Friday's ruling, which provides individual states broad discretion to outright prohibit abortion, severely restrict abortion access, or make abortion legal, he joined the court's two other liberals.
The court's supermajority of six justices struck down a New York state law requiring applicants for a license to carry a gun outside of their homes to have a "proper cause," claiming it violated the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, and Breyer wrote a pointed dissent to that decision last week.
According to Breyer, "Many states have sought to address some of the risks of gun violence just enumerated by establishing laws that limit, in various ways, who may buy, carry, or use weapons of different sorts." "Today, the Court significantly impedes States' efforts to do so."
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