Stephen Gerald Breyer was born in California on August 15, 1938. He is an American jurist and lawyer who has served on the United States Supreme Court as an associate Judge since 1994. President Bill Clinton nominated him to succeed in retiring Justice Harry Blackmun. Breyer is often regarded as a member of the Court’s liberal wing.

Education

Breyer graduated from Lowell High School in 1955. He went to Stanford University to study philosophy after high school. In 1959, Breyer received a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors and was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. Breyer then received a Marshall Scholarship to study philosophy, economics, and politics at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he got a second B.A. in 1961.

He later returned to the United States, where he was a part of the Harvard Law Review and received his bachelor’s degree magna cum laude in 1964.

Career

Breyer worked as a law agent for Associate Justice Arthur Goldberg of the United States Supreme Court from 1964 to 1965 and as a reality checker for the Warren Commission.

On November 13, 1980, after losing reelection, President Jimmy Carter elected Breyer to the First Circuit, a new seat created by 92 stat. 1629, and the United States Senate revealed him on December 10, 1980. He was given his commission. Breyer was in service on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit from 1980 to 1994, including its Chief Judge from 1990 to 1994.

Retirement

Following Democratic successes in the presidential and general elections in 2020, progressive members and activists of Congress called on Breyer to resign so that President Joe Biden Could appoint a younger, more liberal justice.

In an interview on August 2021 with the New York Times, Breyer stated that he hoped to resign before his death. However, in a conversation with Justice Antonin Scalia, Scalia noted that he did not want his succession to “reverse everything I’ve done for the previous 25 years.

On January 26, 2022, media sources detailed Breyer’s expectation to resign from the Court after finishing the 2021-2022 terms.