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Timeline: Justice Anthony Kennedy's key Supreme Court decisions

Timeline: Justice Anthony Kennedy's key Supreme Court decisions
Posted at 11:46 AM, Jun 27, 2018
and last updated 2018-06-27 14:48:13-04

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy just announced that he is retiring from his position by the end of the month.

Kennedy, who was sworn in as the 104th justice of the Supreme Court in 1988, has been involved in coauthoring major legal decisions that have shaped the United States as we know it today.

Here are a few of them:

  • June 29, 1992 — He angered conservatives by coauthoring, with Justices Sandra Day O'Connor and David Souter, the opinion of the court in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, to uphold Roe v. Wade.
  • March 1, 2005 — He wrote the majority opinion for the 5-4 ruling in Roper v. Simmons, stating that executing killers who were under age 18 when they committed their crimes is unconstitutional.
  • April 18, 2007  He voted with the conservatives in the 5-4 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart. Justice Kennedy wrote the majority opinion to uphold the nationwide ban on partial birth abortions.
  • June 12, 2008 — In Boumediene v. Bush, Kennedy wrote the majority 5-4 opinion and assessed that the language of the Constitution grants the Guantanamo Bay prison detainees the right to seek habeas corpus.
  • June 25, 2012  He wrote the opinion of the court in Arizona v. United States, overturning three sections of Arizona's 2010 immigration law.
  • June 26, 2013  Kennedy wrote the majority opinion of the court in United States v. Windsor, striking down part of the Defense of Marriage Act.
  • June 26, 2015  He wrote the landmark majority opinion of the court in Obergefell v. Hodgesmaking same-sex marriage legal in all 50 US states.
  • June 23, 2016  Kennedy wrote the majority opinion in Fisher v. University of Texas, upholding the right of universities to consider race as one factor in admissions.