Justice Breyer: My Retirement Begins at Noon Thursday

While Justice Stephen Breyer may disagree with more Supreme Court decisions to come, he'll be doing so as a private citizen. In a letter the court released Wednesday, Breyer told President Biden that the court's final decision of the term will be handed down Thursday morning, and his retirement will become effective at noon that day, USA Today reports. "It has been my great honor to participate as a judge in the effort to maintain our Constitution and the Rule of Law," wrote Breyer, whose replacement, Ketanji Brown Jackson, was confirmed by the Senate in April.

Breyer's retirement after nearly 30 years will not alter the balance between the top court's three liberal justices and the conservative supermajority. Recent decisions the 83-year-old Breyer dissented from include the Friday decision to strike down the Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood decisions on abortion rights, Politico reports. "The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them," Breyer wrote in a joint dissent with Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor. (More Stephen Breyer stories.)