Justices with Power or Ideological Mission Less Likely to Retire

There are two kinds of U.S. Supreme Court justices who are less likely to retire: those who have power, and those who don’t have it but retain a strong sense of ideological mission.

That’s the conclusion of two Santa Clara University political science professors, Terri Peretti and Alan Rozzi, the National Law Journal reports. They studied Supreme Court retirements from the 1953 to the 2006 terms. “Justices who are more ideologically distant from the court median are less likely to retire, as are justices who are writing more majority opinions and thus more engaged and influential in determining the content of the court's doctrines," the professors concluded in their study.

"We find that justices are less inclined to leave the bench when fulfilling an ideological mission by ‘fighting the good fight’ from the wings or when steering the court by writing majority opinions that shape legal policy."

The study also found that justices are more likely to retire earlier in a president’s term, perhaps in an attempt to reduce political conflict in the appointment of a replacement.