Deciding to Leave: The Politics of Retirement from the United States Supreme Court

The first sustained examination of the process by which justices elect to leave the United States Supreme Court.

While much has been written on Supreme Court appointments, Deciding to Leave provides the first systematic look at the process by which justices decide to retire from the bench, and why this has become increasingly partisan in recent years. Since 1954, generous retirement provisions and decreasing workloads have allowed justices to depart strategically when a president of their ow...