Tales from the Trail

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens celebrated a milestone birthday Tuesday when he turned 90, and received a letter of congratulations from President Barack Obama.

“For the last 35 years of your remarkable 90, the nation has benefited from the rigor, courage, and integrity that have marked your service on the Supreme Court,” Obama said in a letter to Stevens.

“Our system of justice and our nation are stronger and fairer because of your sterling contributions,” Obama wrote in the letter released by the Supreme Court.

Stevens is the second oldest justice in court history. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes retired in 1932 just two months before his 91st birthday.

In 1931, on the only other occasion that a sitting Supreme Court justice celebrated his 90th birthday, President Herbert   Hover wrote to Holmes his congratulations, Obama noted.

While playwright George Bernard Shaw argued youth is wasted on the young, former President Bill Clinton on Sunday urged President Barack Obama to put youth high on the list of attributes for the next United States Supreme Court nominee.

“I’d like to see him (President Barack Obama) put someone in their late 40s or early 50s on the court and someone, you know, with a lot of energy for the job,” Clinton said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Liberal Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the oldest and longest-serving justices in history, announced earlier this month he would resign. Stevens celebrates his 90th birthday on April 20.