Former Justice Breyer Favors Age, Term Limits on SCOTUS

Former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer says he’s in favor of age limits for justices, suggesting a more than decade-long term is reasonable — and would have helped him in his own decision to retire.

In an interview that aired Sunday on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” the 85-year-old jurist — now the Byrne Professor of Administrative Law and Process at Harvard Law School — stepped down from the high court in June 2022.

“I don’t think that’s harmful,” he said of a double-digit term, the Hill reported.

“If you had long terms, for example, they’d have to be long. Why long? Because I don’t think you want someone who’s appointed to the Supreme Court to be thinking about his next job.

“And so, a 20-year term? I don’t know, 18? Long term? Fine. Fine,” he continued. “I don’t think that would be harmful.”

“I think it would have helped, in my case,” he asserted. “It would have avoided, for me, going through difficult decisions when you retire. What’s the right time? And so, that would be okay.”

The liberal Breyer was replaced by liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

SCOTUS age limits and terms are again at the forefront of debate as liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor reportedly faces pressure from Democrats to retire.

Breyer also said it’s “possible” the high court one day could overrule its 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health that overruled Roe v. Wade.

“But who knows?” he added

He spoke out, however, about the leak of the majority’s decision to overturn Roe, which preceded the official ruling by several weeks, calling it unfortunate.”

Breyer said that he had a “theory.”

“You have a theory. People have theories. I don’t mean to be coy, but I really don’t want to get into something,” he said, adding: “I’d be amazed if it was a judge.”

Breyer demurred on recent Supreme Court cases regarding former President Donald Trump’s legal troubles.

“I’m not going to answer that,” Breyer said. “Why? Because I think one of the really unfortunate things I could do is retire from the court and then sit here and criticize particular cases or not criticize them.”

“I can tell you, I can criticize some,” he said of older cases. “Dred Scott was a terrible decision, and so forth, and Brown v. Board of Education was a very good one. We can go back in time. But I don’t think I can really go into discussing the merits of recent decisions.”