{"id":147413,"date":"2018-06-27T19:11:51","date_gmt":"2018-06-27T19:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/anthony-kennedy-us-supreme-court-judge-to-retire\/"},"modified":"2018-06-27T19:11:51","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T19:11:51","slug":"anthony-kennedy-us-supreme-court-judge-to-retire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/anthony-kennedy-us-supreme-court-judge-to-retire\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Kennedy: US Supreme Court judge to retire"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy speaks in front of a microphone\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/12E83\/production\/_102234477_hi047778523.jpg\"\/>Image copyright                  Reuters                                                    <\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is set to retire, giving President Donald Trump the chance to cement a conservative majority on the top court.<\/p>\n<p>The conservative has been a pivotal vote on many decisions including the 5-4 rulings that decided same-sex marriage and upheld abortion rights.<\/p>\n<p>In his letter to Mr Trump, Justice Kennedy expressed &quot;profound gratitude&quot; for having served in the highest court.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Kennedy, 81, will retire on 31 July, per his letter to Mr Trump.<\/p>\n<p>He is the second oldest justice on the nine-member court. <\/p>\n<p>&quot;It has been the greatest honour and privilege to serve our nation in the federal judiciary for 43 years, 30 of those years on the Supreme Court,&quot; Justice Kennedy wrote. <\/p>\n<p>Justice Kennedy, who was nominated by President Ronald Reagan and began his term in 1988, said his retirement was motivated by his decision to spend more time with his family. <\/p>\n<p>He voted reliably conservative on issues of campaign finance, voting rights and gun rights, but was considered a swing vote on key rulings.<\/p>\n<p>Justice Kennedy penned the Supreme Court&#039;s first major gay-rights decision in 1996, protecting LGBT Americans from discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>In 2015, he authored the landmark opinion which gave LGBT citizens the right to marry, writing: &quot;They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law and the Constitution grants them that right.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>As a justice, he routinely favoured personal liberty and the limiting of federal power. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why is the US Supreme Court so important?<\/li>\n<li>Meet the Supremes - the nine judges on US top court<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>During a meeting with Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa at the White House, President Trump said he would select a nominee to replace Justice Kennedy from a list of 25 potential court candidates that his campaign had compiled during the election. <\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump called Justice Kennedy &quot;a great justice&quot; who &quot;displayed great vision&quot; and &quot;tremendous heart&quot;. <\/p>\n<h2>Timing is everything<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Anthony Zurcher, BBC News, Washington<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Without Anthony Kennedy, the political centre on the Supreme Court will be firmly on the right. Whoever Donald Trump nominates - and he&#039;s promised to draw from the same list of candidates from which he picked Neil Gorsuch - will be a person with solid conservative bona fides. <\/p>\n<p>Democrats and liberal activists will howl, rage and do all they can to slow the process, but the timing of Mr Kennedy&#039;s retirement makes what happens next all but inevitable. The president will surely offer his choice quickly, and if Republican senators stick together they have the votes to confirm before November&#039;s mid-terms congressional elections, let alone when new senators are sworn in next January.<\/p>\n<p>And even if the court vacancy becomes a campaign issue, the open seat in 2016 proved that court vacancies are a much stronger motivating consideration for Republicans - particularly evangelical voters - than they are for Democrats. <\/p>\n<p>File this as yet another entry in the &quot;elections have consequences&quot; scrapbook. <\/p>\n<p>If Hillary Clinton had prevailed in 2016, Democrats would be contemplating a 6-3 liberal Supreme Court majority and an opportunity to reshape the legal landscape for a generation. Instead, on subjects like abortion law and gay rights, the pendulum is swinging the other direction. <\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump said the process to replace him would begin immediately.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;Hopefully we will pick someone who is just as outstanding&quot;, he said. <\/p>\n<p>Mr Trump added that he learned of the judge&#039;s retirement about a half hour before, when Justice Kennedy came to the White House to meet him. <\/p>\n<p>The White House also released a statement thanking Justice Kennedy for his 30 years of service as a &quot;tireless voice for individual rights&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>&quot;His words have left an indelible mark not only on this generation, but on the fabric of American history.&quot;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image copyright Reuters Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy is set to retire, giving President Donald Trump the chance to cement a conservative majority on the top court. The conservative has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":147414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-147413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147413","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}