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In our timeline, Justice Thurgood Marshall was urged by the Carter administration to retire so that Carter could nominate his successor. Carter planned to nominate Solicitor General Wade McCree to succeed him.
What if he did retire and McCree succeeded him?
In our timeline, McCree died in 30 August 1987. I highly doubt that service in the Supreme Court would make him live longer. What would happen once he died? A problem is that his death was during the Robert Bork Supreme Court nomination. Would Reagan have nominated a successor for McCree, too, at the time, or would he have waited until Lewis Powell's seat was filled? If the former, how would the Senate have dealt with two simultaneous nominations?
In any case, Reagan would have been heavily pressured to nominate a black or at least a minority to succeed McCree. The problem is that there were very few black conservatives with any judicial experience. Reagan nominated only one black to a circuit court: Lawrence W. Pierce. He may be considered to succeed McCree but, at the time, he would have been 62-63. Reagan may not want to nominate a relatively old person, especially as he had elevated the 61 year old Rehnquist to Chief Justice in 1986.
Other two black possibilities are Amalya Kearse and William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr., both of whom are listed in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan_Supreme_Court_candidates. Those two may be too moderate for Reagan but once Bork is defeated, he may decide that it's better not to nominate a conservative. In addition, he may realize that it would be hard to find a really conservative black judge. With Coleman, there's also the age issue. Out of the 3 black possibilities, Kearse appears to be the most likely to me, as she was younger and was on Reagan's shortlist to succeed Pottee Stewart in 1981.
Another possibility: Maybe Reagan tries a Hispanic in order to keep the minority seat, while expanding the number of conservative options available? The problem is that there are no Hispanics listed in the Wikipedia page that I linked to.
Any thoughts?
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