Nominated by President Clinton, Justice Breyer served on the Supreme Court from 1994 until his retirement in 2022. He was preceded by Justice Harry Blackmun and succeeded by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson; he wrote 551 opinions during that 28-year career. Before the Supreme Court, he served on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (1980-1994) including four years as Chief Judge; before that he held many government positions, including assistant special prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. He is currently the Byrne Professor of Administrative Law and Process at Harvard Law School. Virtually all discussions of his career mention that he was an Eagle Scout.

Emily Bazelon is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, and a Senior Research Fellow at Yale Law School.