"Corelli resigns
Yesterday's announcement that Supreme Court justice Joe Corelli is to resign came as a complete surprise. At 68, Corelli is one of the younger Supreme Court justices and could reasonably have been expected to remain in office for at least another half-decade before retiring. The official statement from Corelli's chambers gave unspecified "family matters" as the reason for his early departure from office. However Supreme Court insiders suggested last night that personal health concerns may have prompted Corelli's departure.
Whatever the cause of Corelli's intended resignation, the effect is dramatic. His departure will leave the Supreme Court bereft of a justice who has been a towering force since his appointment by President George Bush, Sr. almost 20 years ago. In a series of punchy judgments over the last two decades, Corelli has established himself as the most brilliant member of a luminous bench and as a champion of (occasionally extreme) conservatism in America's so-called "culture war". However, not all of Corelli's judgments have been conservative. He has consistently proven himself a stalwart supporter of free speech, though nothing less is perhaps to be expected of a Supreme Court justice who once described a colleague's opinion as "nonsensical" and another's as "irrational".
On a personal level Corelli's life involves a long litany of achievements. The son of a Corsican immigrant father who taught French in Hoboken, Corelli attended Princeton University before taking his law degree from Stanford where he graduated second in class. After a period of study at the University of Paris, he landed a job at a San Diego law firm, then served for a time in the Ford and Reagan administrations before taking a teaching position at Harvard University Law School. He was nominated to the federal Court of Appeals in 1986 and elevated to the Supreme Court four years after that.
Yesterday's announcement that Supreme Court justice Joe Corelli is to resign came as a complete surprise. At 68, Corelli is one of the younger Supreme Court justices and could reasonably have been expected to remain in office for at least another half-decade before retiring. The official statement from Corelli's chambers gave unspecified "family matters" as the reason for his early departure from office. However Supreme Court insiders suggested last night that personal health concerns may have prompted Corelli's departure.
Whatever the cause of Corelli's intended resignation, the effect is dramatic. His departure will leave the Supreme Court bereft of a justice who has been a towering force since his appointment by President George Bush, Sr. almost 20 years ago. In a series of punchy judgments over the last two decades, Corelli has established himself as the most brilliant member of a luminous bench and as a champion of (occasionally extreme) conservatism in America's so-called "culture war". However, not all of Corelli's judgments have been conservative. He has consistently proven himself a stalwart supporter of free speech, though nothing less is perhaps to be expected of a Supreme Court justice who once described a colleague's opinion as "nonsensical" and another's as "irrational".
On a personal level Corelli's life involves a long litany of achievements. The son of a Corsican immigrant father who taught French in Hoboken, Corelli attended Princeton University before taking his law degree from Stanford where he graduated second in class. After a period of study at the University of Paris, he landed a job at a San Diego law firm, then served for a time in the Ford and Reagan administrations before taking a teaching position at Harvard University Law School. He was nominated to the federal Court of Appeals in 1986 and elevated to the Supreme Court four years after that.
Married for four decades and the father of five children, Corelli is one of a small clutch of Catholics who have served on the Supreme Court, though he leaves at a time when a record six of nine serving justices are, at least nominally, Catholic.
Corelli's departure presents the President with a once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the political balance within the Court by nominating a liberal appointee in place of a conservative incumbent. There is no indication yet who the President might choose to take Corelli's place. At a press conference yesterday evening the President praised Justice Corelli for his "long years of distinguished service to the nation" and refused to be drawn on the matter of who Corelli's successor might be."
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