After announcing his choice on Tuesday, Trump said, "Depending on their age, a justice can be active for 50 years, and his or her decisions can last a century or more and can often be permanent."



But a 50-year term has never come close to happening in U.S. history. In reality, no justice has even served 40 years. William O. Douglas, who was appointed in 1939, holds the record for longest-serving Supreme Court justice at 36 years, seven months.

For Gorsuch to make it to 50 years on the bench, he'd have to stay on until he's almost 100.

Still, the age of Trump's nominee is significant because Supreme Court nominations are lifetime appointments, and a young conservative addition to the bench can determine the ideological balance of the court for decades. At the time of Scalia's death, the court was on average older than it's been since the late 1970s.



Recently, the average justice has been serving for about 25 years and tends to leave when he or she is a few years away from 80. As the court stands today, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 83, Anthony Kennedy is 80 and Stephen Breyer is 78. If Trump manages to place a few young justices on the court, his nominations could influence the outcome of court cases for the next three decades.