US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy Announces His Retirement

81-year-old US Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy has announced that he is retiring. Seen as a centrist, who often decides close cases, Kennedy recently sided with the conservative majority in upholding the latest version of the Trump administration's travel ban.

Anthony McLeod Kennedy (born July 23, 1936) is the senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. President Ronald Reagan nominated Kennedy to the Supreme Court in 1987, and Kennedy was sworn in on February 18, 1988. Since the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor in 2006, he has been the swing vote on many of the Roberts Court's 5–4 decisions.

Born in Sacramento, California, Kennedy took over his father's legal practice in Sacramento after graduating from Harvard Law School. In 1975, President Gerald Ford appointed Kennedy to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In November 1987, after two previous attempts at nominating a successor to Associate Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr., President Reagan nominated Kennedy to the Supreme Court. Kennedy won unanimous confirmation from the United States Senate in February 1988. Kennedy became the most senior Associate Justice of the Court following the death of Antonin Scalia in February 2016.[6]