In this March 26, 2009 file photo, Connecticut state Supreme Court Justice Richard Palmer, center, questions attorneys at the Connecticut Supreme Court in Hartford, Conn. Palmer, who authored the landmark Connecticut Supreme Court rulings that legalized same-sex marriage and abolished the state's death penalty, is stepping down after 27 years on the high court.
(AP Photo/Bob Child, Pool)WASHINGTON The last time a Supreme Court justice announced his retirement in a presidential election year, most of the current justices were too young to vote.
The nomination to replace Chief Justice Earl Warren failed in that turbulent year, and no justice has retired in an election year since.
Charles Cooper, who argued the S&Ls' case at the Supreme Court, recalled that a resolution was urgently needed because scores of copy-cat cases had been clogging" court dockets for years.
When Burger was chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, the court routinely kept working into July, even past Independence Day.