Which Supreme Court justices will resign during Trump's term?

**Stage 1 — Blind analysis (ignore market prices)**

Justice Clarence Thomas is the oldest sitting justice and the Court’s longest-serving member. As of the latest reporting he remains active in opinions and public filings, and there has been no announcement or credible reporting that he plans to retire or resign during the remainder of the presidential term that ends 2029-01-20. Historically, justices typically time retirements to coincide with a president of the same party so their seat is filled by an ideologically aligned successor; this incentive would, if anything, make resignation under a Republican president *more* likely for some justices. However, Thomas’s record shows a pattern of long tenure and a stated preference to serve indefinitely; he has not given public signals of seeking to step down.

Key objective factors informing my baseline estimate: - Age and mortality: born in 1948, Thomas is in his late 70s. Age raises the non-negligible probability of health shocks that could force a leave or prompt retirement, but age alone is a weak predictor of voluntary resignation in the absence of overt health decline. - Activity level: recent participation in opinions and a 2026 concurrence indicate functional engagement with Court business, arguing against imminent departure. - Political/strategic calculus: the current president (Trump) is politically aligned with Thomas’s jurisprudence, reducing the strategic incentive to retire for ideological reasons — he would be assured of a conservative successor. That lowers voluntary-retirement pressure compared with a justice wanting to preserve their jurisprudential legacy under an opposition president. - Controversy and pressure: impeachment resolutions and petitions have surfaced, reflecting heightened political visibility and potential reputational costs. Historically, political pressure and controversy without legal removal rarely cause Supreme Court justices to resign.

Weighing these, I place a modest but meaningful chance of resignation during the roughly 2.6-year remaining window of Trump’s term (from mid-2026 to Jan 20, 2029). The main mechanisms that could produce a resignation are: (1) an acute health event that leads to retirement; (2) an ethical or legal revelation creating pressure to step down; or (3) a voluntary, pre-planned retirement for personal reasons. Of these, health events are the dominant stochastic risk; voluntary strategy-based retirement is unlikely given ideological alignment and demonstrated preference to remain on the bench.

Putting these together, my independent (pre-market) probability for a voluntary resignation during Trump’s term is 25%.

**Stage 2 — Market calibration (compare to current market prices)**

The current market price is Yes = 0.38, No = 0.62, which implies a 38% chance of resignation — materially higher than my 25% independent estimate. Potential reasons the market price is higher than my read: - Traders may be overweighting *age alone* and treating any late-70s justice as likely to leave within a multi-year window, without adjusting for activity and political incentives. Age-based heuristics can bias probabilities upward. - Recent political controversy (impeachment articles, petitions) is salient and may be driving speculative bets; traders can conflate political pressure with imminent resignation, despite historical precedent showing controversy seldom causes voluntary resignation. - Some participants may be folding in the risk of death or incapacitation as equivalent to “resignation” (or the market question may be ambiguously interpreted by some traders), which would raise the implied probability relative to voluntary retirement only. If death is being implicitly included, the true voluntary-resignation probability would be lower than the market's number suggests. - Liquidity and event-driven bettors: the market’s volume shows active trading (73k+ contracts), which could create trending prices that overshoot the underlying fundamentals, especially shortly after news spikes. - There remains a (low) possibility of nonpublic information getting priced in; while that cannot be ruled out, nothing in public reporting as of the latest sources supports a near-term resignation.

Given these potential explanations, the market appears to be modestly overpriced relative to my fundamentals-based view. If you accept my model and risk tolerance, selling Yes (or buying No) at ~38% would be the value trade; conversely, if you place more weight on age, political volatility, or private information being priced, the market could be fair.

Overall: I estimate a 25% independent chance, and I judge the market’s 38% price to reflect risk-tilted or heuristic-driven beliefs more than hard signals.