By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Stephen Breyer on Tuesday said liberal advocates of big changes at the Supreme Court, including expanding the number of justices, should think "long and hard" about what they're proposing.
Politically driven change could diminish the trust Americans place in the court, Breyer said in the prepared text of a long speech he gave remotely Tuesday to Harvard Law School students, faculty and alumni.
His talk, Breyer said, "seeks to make those whose initial instincts may favor important structural (or other similar institutional) changes, such as forms of 'court-packing,' think long and hard before embodying those changes in law."
Breyer, a Harvard law alumnus who also taught at the school, is the court's oldest justice at 82. President Joe Biden's election and Democrats' paper-thin Senate majority have prompted talk that Breyer, appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton in 1994, could soon retire, perhaps as early as the summer.
While he has said nothing publicly about his plans, the speech could be read as a kind of farewell address, filled with calls for the public to view the justices as more than "junior league politicians."
He noted, for example, that despite the court's conservative majority, the court in the past year refrained from getting involved in the 2020 election, delivered a victory to Louisiana abortion clinics and rejected former President Donald Trump's effort to end legal protections for immigrants who were brought to the United States as children.
Trump appointed three justices to the court, the last of whom, Amy Coney Barrett, replaced the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg in October.
Breyer acknowledged that conservative views prevailed in other decisions.
"These considerations convince me that it is wrong to think of the Court as another political institution," he said.
Breyer's speech was part of Harvard's Scalia Lecture Series, named for the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Breyer and Scalia were high-court colleagues for more than two decades.
- Posted April 08, 2021
- Tweet This | Share on Facebook
Justice Breyer says big Supreme Court changes could diminish trust
headlines Oakland County
- Annual Dinner & Meeting
- FORCE Team arrests six in prolific auto theft ring
- Michigan allocates $12 million to support community-based organizations in advancing environmental and climate justice
- Oakland County and SMART launch pilot program providing free transit for veterans and dependents
- Supreme Court sides with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
headlines National
- More lawyers—and clients—want to learn about sustainable development practices
- Top artificial intelligence insurance tips for lawyers
- Lawyer charged with illegally transmitting Michigan data after 2020 election
- Viral video shows former Rikers Island inmate as she learns she passed bar exam on first try
- How Sullivan & Cromwell is scrutinizing potential new hires after campus protests
- No separate hearing required when police seize cars loaned to drivers accused of drug crimes, SCOTUS rules