Souter to Retire

The Supreme Court is losing one of its four reliably liberal members. This is expected to be the only retirement of a SCOTUS justice in 2009.

Souter was apparently satisfied that neither the court’s oldest member, 89-year-old John Paul Stevens, nor its lone woman, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who had cancer surgery over the winter, wanted to retire at the end of this term. Not wanting to cause a second vacancy, Souter apparently had waited to learn his colleagues’ plans before deciding his own.

By: Joel