Obama Eyes Elena Kagan, 2 Others for Supreme Court

Justice John Paul Stevens still hasn't decided exactly how soon he'll retire from the Supreme Court, but President Obama already has his eye on three potential replacements: Solicitor General Elena Kagan and federal appellate judges Diane Wood and Merrick Garland. The White House is preparing to move quickly with a nomination if Stevens announces his retirement at the end of the Supreme Court term on April 28.

Obama interviewed Kagan, the first female solicitor general, and Wood for David Souter's seat before deciding on Sonia Sotomayor. Kagan's solicitor general nomination was contentious, with significant GOP opposition. Wood, a judge on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, is known as an "intellectual jurist," Bloomberg reports. Garland, a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, is the most conservative of the three. (More US Supreme Court stories.)