Building a Bench

A Supreme Court nomination is perhaps the least predictable event in political life. A president never knows when a justice might decide to give up his or her lifetime appointment. It did not happen in Jimmy Carter's four years or in the first term of President Bush.

Even when the opportunity does arise, a president is just as likely to use an appointment to fill a political commitment or to avoid a fight with a hostile Senate as he is to ensure his ideological legacy. Ronald Reagan's first appointment to the court was not the conservative Antonin Scalia but the more moderate Sandra Day O'Connor, fulfilling his campaign promise of nominating the court's first female justice. Bill Clinton considered at least four politicians to fill the two openings he received, but in the end he went the more recently traditional route, naming appellate judges Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer. (All nine justices on the current court are former federal appeals court judges.)

The median age of the last 10 justices to leave the court, either by resignation or death, is 79. The ages of the current court when the next president takes office:

· Justice John Paul Stevens, 88

· Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75

· Justice Antonin Scalia, 72

· Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, 72

· Justice Stephen G. Breyer, 70

· Justice David H. Souter, 69

· Justice Clarence Thomas, 60

· Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., 58

· Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., 53

-- Robert Barnes and Kevin Merida