Kaye Hearn, a justice on South Carolina’s Supreme Court, wrote the majority opinion this month that struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban. Now, she’s retiring, and state legislators are preparing to elect her successor.
have been among those who have been asked to weigh whether laws widely banning or restricting abortion in their states should stand.
On Wednesday, Hearn emphasized her belief that all three candidates for her seat were “eminently qualified,” calling them friends. And she said she supports South Carolina’s system for tapping candidates for the state Supreme Court, in which a 10-person commission made up of legislators and the general public screens candidates before it nominates up to three applicants, who are then voted on by the Legislature.
As of May, every state’s Supreme Court had at least one female justice, although nine of those states, including South Carolina, had only one, according to afrom the Brennan Center for Justice, a research and policy institute advocating for judicial reforms. Hearn said she is fond of her male colleagues, and she credits the late Justice Julius B. Ness with helping her see a pathway to the bench. She thinks there is truth to varying quotations attributed to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, about “a wise old woman and a wise old man” reaching “the same conclusion.”
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