Technically, as I said, Marshall retired. But his health was failing apparently. I honestly don’t remember how ill he was at the time. However, for him to have retired while a Democrat was in office, he would have had to retire by 1980. He would have been 72 then, but had only been on the Court for 13 years, and probably wasn’t thinking he’d have to serve another 12 years before another Democrat was in office. And his health was probably fine in 1980. Plus, partisanship hadn’t gotten completely out of control yet. So I’ll give Marshall a pass. RBG should have retired, though. Souter at least did retire right after Obama was elected, so things could be worse.
