List of United States Supreme Court justices by time in office explained

A total of 116 people have served on the Supreme Court of the United States, the highest judicial body in the United States, since it was established in 1789. Supreme Court justices have life tenure, meaning that they serve until they die, resign, retire, or are impeached and removed from office. For the 107 non-incumbent justices, the average length of service was 6,203 days (16 years, 359 days).^[1] The longest serving justice was William O. Douglas, with a tenure of 13,358 days . The longest serving chief justice was John Marshall, with a tenure of 12,570 days . John Rutledge, who served on the court twice, was both the shortest serving associate justice, with a tenure of 383 days, and the shortest serving chief justice, with a tenure of 138 days . Among the current members of the court, Clarence Thomas's tenure of days is the longest, while Ketanji Brown Jackson's days is the shortest.

The table below ranks all United States Supreme Court justices by time in office. For five individuals confirmed for associate justice, and who later served as chief justice—Charles Evans Hughes, William Rehnquist, John Rutledge, Harlan F. Stone, and Edward Douglass White—their cumulative length of service on the court is measured. The basis of the ranking is the difference between dates; if counted by number of calendar days all the figures would be one greater, with the exception of Charles Evans Hughes and John Rutledge, who would receive two days, as each served on the court twice (their service as associate justice and as chief justice was separated by a period of years off the court). The start date given for each justice is the day they took the prescribed oath of office, with the end date being the date of the justice's death, resignation, or retirement. A highlighted row indicates a justice currently serving on the court.

Justices by time in office

Rank	Justice	Length in days	Length in years and days	Start date	End date
1
2
3
4	(CJ)
5
6
7
8	(CJ)			September 26, 1986	September 26, 1986 September 3, 2005
9
10					Incumbent
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19	(CJ)
20
21
22
23
24	(CJ)			December 19, 1910	December 19, 1910 May 19, 1921
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39	(CJ)
40	(CJ)			July 3, 1941	July 2, 1941 April 22, 1946
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48	(CJ)				Incumbent
49
50
51					Incumbent
52
53
54	(CJ)
55	(CJ)		17 years, 5 days	February 24, 1930	June 10, 1916 June 30, 1941
56
57
58
59	(CJ)
60
61
62
63
64
65					Incumbent
66
67
68
69	(CJ)
70					Incumbent
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83	(CJ)
84	(CJ)
85
86
87					Incumbent
88	(CJ)
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97					Incumbent
98
99	(CJ)
100 (tie)
102
103
104	(CJ)
105
106
107					Incumbent
108
109
110
111
112
113					Incumbent
114	(CJ)		1 year, 156 days	August 12, 1795	March 5, 1791 December 28, 1795
115
116

See also

• List of United States federal judges by longevity of service

Notes and References

1. Web site: Wellford. Rachel. More than 2 centuries of Supreme Court justices, in 18 numbers. July 9, 2018. PBS NewsHour. NewsHour Productions (WETA-TV). Arlington County, Virginia. August 3, 2018. July 13, 2018. https://web.archive.org/web/20180713214005/https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/more-than-2-centuries-of-supreme-court-justices-in-18-numbers. live.