By the CNN Wire Staff
(CNN) -- Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens told two newspapers Saturday that he will soon decide whether to step down after 35 years as the leader of the liberal wing of the nation's highest court.
Stevens' comments to The New York Times and Washington Post amplify what he told CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on March 8 that he would make up his mind about retirement in about a month.
"We are just about at a month," Toobin said Saturday night. "I don't think he meant that precisely to the day, but I think we will hear in the month of April that he is retiring".
Steven's retirement has been the cause of growing speculation since last fall when he hired one law clerk for the upcoming session of the court, Toobin said. Until then, he had hired his customary four.
"Last fall, he hired one law clerk which is all that a retiring justice is entitled to," Toobin said.
Stevens celebrates his 90th birthday on April 20.
His retirement will give President Obama another chance to put his stamp on the court. Last summer, he named appeals court judge Sonia Sotomayor to the court.
In Stevens' place, Obama will likely nominate another Democrat, thus maintaining the court's ideological balance of five conservative to four-liberal leaning judges.
In an interview with Toobin for the New Yorker in March, Stevens danced around the timetable for his departure.
"You can say I will retire within the next three years. I'm sure of that," he said.
He was equally coy in his comments to the newspapers Saturday.
"I do have to fish or cut bait, just for my own personal peace of mind and also in fairness to the process," Stevens told The New York Times. "The president and the Senate need plenty of time to fill a vacancy".
To The Washington Post, he said: "I will surely do it while he's still president," referring to Obama.
Stevens was named to the court by Republican President Gerald Ford in 1975. Since then, he's sided with the liberal wing of the court in civil rights cases, among other issues.
Stevens was also the author of most of the rulings that struck down the Bush administration's policies on the rights of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
CNN
