Politics
John Roberts Reveals Decision On Possible Retirement
Four months into the second Trump administration, court observers are beginning to prod U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts with questions about his future atop America’s justice system and whether he will make room for President Donald Trump to be given a historic opportunity to select his fourth justice.
Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, has served as chief justice since 2005. In that time, he has seen a majority of the court turn over to new faces and presided over some of the most monumental cases in modern American history, including the 2015 Obergefell decision legalizing gay marriage and the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade.
But ask the man himself, and Roberts will say he has many more scholarly years ahead of him.
“I’ve sat down with them and said, ‘I want at the appropriate time’ — because you don’t always notice that you’re slipping — ‘I want the two of you to tell me if it’s time to go.’ It was a long pause, and at once, the two of them said, ‘It’s time to go.’ So I said, ‘Alright, never mind,’” Roberts told a crowd of lawyers and court observers during a public appearance in Buffalo, New York, this week.
“I’m going out feet first,” the 70-year-old joked about his tenure.
“I say that now. I mean, I’m sure if your health declines, and if you recognize that you’re a burden to the court rather than part of an assist to everybody, then, it’ll be time to go,” he said.
The appearance by Roberts was intended to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York, but his remarks about future plans on the high court quickly overshadowed all else.
Age of justices, who hold lifetime appointments, has not been a consistent problem on the court — “just a handful of times” Roberts said in response to a question about whether it is appropriate for justices in their late 80s to be wading through complex legal cases with profound constitutional implications.
“There have been times when somebody has stayed a little longer than they should, then the other colleagues come, and it’s always really worked out, so I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Roberts said without naming names.
Despite serving on the court for two decades now, Roberts confirmed he still feels “pretty healthy” most days. He is still younger than three of his colleagues: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Sonia Sotomayor, the Conservative Brief reports.
Roberts, who spent his childhood in Buffalo, told the crowd he stopped by his boyhood home before coming to the dinner where his remarks were made.
Asked about the increased use of presidential impeachments in modern times, Roberts observed, “Impeachment is not how you register disagreement with decisions.”
WATCH:
Although proponents of term limits for Supreme Court justices have grown increasingly vocal with their calls for older justices to resign, Roberts and other justices have rebuffed them. Samuel Alito, a member of the court’s conservative wing, recently let it be known that he has no intention of retiring under Trump.
“Despite what some people may think, this is a man who has never thought about this job from a political perspective,” said one person close to Alito. “The idea that he’s going to retire for political considerations is not consistent with who he is.”
One source, speaking with the Wall Street Journal, “tamped down speculation among legal activists that the 74-year-old jurist was readying to retire so that President Donald Trump could fill his seat with a younger conservative.”
