At 83 years old, the high court's eldest member plans to retire at the end of the current term, which ends in September, according to "people familiar with his thinking."
A September retirement will give US President Joe Biden time to nominate a replacement while the Democrats still control the US Senate, as he has been under pressure to do. Such an appointment would be Biden's first, after his predecessor, Donald Trump, was able to appoint three conservative justices to the court during his four years in office.
Biden's spokesperson, Jen Psaki, said Wednesday he "stands by" his promise to nominate a Black woman to the high court.
A graduate of Stanford, Oxford and Harvard, Breyer taught law at Harvard Law School for decades and served on the First Circuit Court of Appeals before being nominated by then-US President Bill Clinton in 1994. Breyer replaced Associate Justice Harry Blackmun. He is considered one of the Supreme Court's three liberal justices, who in recent years have largely voted as a minority bloc, criticizing the conservative majority's positions and practices, such as increased use of the "shadow docket."
Because the US operates on a common law system derived from the United Kingdom's, the Supreme Court functions more as an institution of judicial review, delivering philosophical interpretations of cases or laws as they relate to questions of the US Constitution to give guidance to judges on lower courts. However, it also retains a discretionary appellate jurisdiction, and citizens may appeal to the high court for relief if they believe their constitutional rights have been violated by a specific law or practice of the state. It can strike down a law if it finds it to be unconstitutional.