Justice Stephen Breyer set to retire from Supreme Court TOMORROW after 28 years only days after Roe v Wade overturned
ASSOCIATE Justice Stephen Breyer will retire from the Supreme Court tomorrow after 28 years.
In a letter to President , Breyer said it had been his "great honor" to participate as a judge and will officially retire at noon on Thursday.
Breyer's said the court will hand down all the remaining opinions ready during the term at 10am, and his retirement will be effective by noon on June 30.
"It has been my great honor to participate as a judge in the effort to maintain our Constitution and the Rule of Law."
Nominated by former President Bill Clinton, Breyer has been a member of the Supreme Court since the 1990s.
He said that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is prepared to "take the prescribed oaths" to begin her service as the 116th member of the court.
More on Roe v. Wade overturned
Judge Jackson is excepted to be sworn in at noon on Thursday by Chief Justice John Roberts, who will administer the Constitutional Oath.
Jackson was nominated by President Biden in February and is set to become the first black woman to be appointed to the .
She was confirmed by the Senate in April by a vote of 53-47.
ROE V WADE OVERTURNED
Breyer's retirement comes just days after the court overturned the landmark abortion ruling, .
Most read in The Sun
The 5-4 decision will leave the issues of abortion up to state legislators, which will ultimately result in a total ban on the procedure in about half of the states.
Associate Justice Samuel Alito was joined in his opinion by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
In the court's June 24 ruling, Alito called Roe "egregiously wrong from the start".
He said the Constitution "does not confer a right to abortion," declaring that the decision should ultimately be left to the state to regulate.
"Abortion presents a profound moral question The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion.
"Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. The Court overrules those decisions and returns that authority to the people and their elected representatives."
The states that may implement total or near-total abortion restrictions include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
In a concurring opinion, Justice Thomas wrote that the Supreme Court should "reconsider the rulings that protect contraception, same-sex relationships, and same-sex marriage."
"In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court's substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.
"Because any substantive due process decision is 'demonstrably erroneous,' we have a duty to 'correct the error' established in those precedents," he wrote.
READ MORE SUN STORIES
Read More On The Sun
Democrat-appointed Justices Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
“With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,” they wrote.