(USA Features) Harvard professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz on Saturday predicted that U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer will retire next year to make it appear as though he’s not caving in to pressure from the left.
Dershowitz, who described the liberal justice as a “friend,” told Newsmax that he believes Breyer will call it quits next August, giving President Joe Biden’s administration and the still-Democrat majority Senate time to bring on a new, younger left-wing jurist.
“Next August, he will retire,” Dershowitz told “Saturday Report.”
“That will give the president the power to appoint somebody before there’s a new Senate,” he continued.
“So, everybody on the left will be happy, and Breyer will be able to say, ‘I didn’t give into pressure.’ That’s my prediction,” he continued.
Dershowitz said that demands from the left for Breyer to step down now have backfired because justices’ lifetime appointments were constitutionally designed to insulate them from political pressures of any kind.
Nevertheless, Breyer will be 84 next August and he is aware of the law, the political landscape, and the current make-up of the high court. He knows that he’ll have to step down while there is still a Democratic majority.
“My prediction: One year from now, after next term, he will leave,” Dershowitz said. “He might have left earlier if not for the pressures.
“He does not want to be perceived as giving in to pressures. So he’s going to wait a year,” he added.
Dershowitz went on to cite a U.S. Appeals Court ruling earlier this week in which two judges, both appointed by Republican presidents, Donald Trump and George W. Bush, ruled 2-1 that “reasonable” restrictions on firearms purchases by adults aged 18-21 are unconstitutional.
The judge who wrote the dissenting opinion was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
The Harvard law professor said that case is an example of a more open-ended definition of “reasonable,” one that is more permissive of gun ownership than a left-leaning Supreme Court would have.
As such, it will be important for Biden to name a new liberal.
“This court is going to have a much more open-ended definition of a ‘reasonable’ – that is more permissive – of gun ownership than a more liberal court would have, so it really it really depends who’s on the court,” Dershowitz said.
“That’s why it’s so important who is the president and so important who appoints the justices and who are the senators,” he added.
“That’s why there’s so much effort to try to get my friend Steve Breyer to resign, so that he can be replaced by a younger liberal Democrat,” Dershowitz speculated.
“There’s a tremendous amount at stake: the Second Amendment, the First Amendment, and the Constitution in general.”