Rethinking lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices..(good article)

[SoCalDem]

http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/oct05/364833.asp


Rethinking lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices
By Ronald Brownstein
Last Updated: Oct. 22, 2005
Nowhere in the oath of office taken by Supreme Court justices does the phrase "until death do us part" appear.

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It just seems that way.

Justices today, on average, remain on the court longer and retire at a more advanced age than ever before. Supreme Court justices now routinely serve a quarter-century or more. No justice has retired at an age younger than 75 since 1981, when Potter Stewart stepped down at 66.

The Soviet Politburo probably turned over faster.

Which is why an informal band of prominent legal thinkers from left and right is challenging the Constitution's grant of lifetime tenure to Supreme Court justices. With life spans lengthening, and the court's members clinging so tenaciously to their robes, these critics want to limit justices to a single fixed term, usually set at 18 years.

So far, no prominent politician has joined them. But the idea seems destined to generate more discussion as frustration in both parties mounts over the process of selecting and confirming Supreme Court nominees.

"I think there is a widespread feeling on both the right and the left that everything surrounding the Supreme Court and the appointment of its members is broken and needs to be fixed," said Northwestern University Law School professor Steven G. Calabresi, a founder of the conservative Federalist Society and co-author of a fixed-term proposal.

In a recent article, Calabresi and Northwestern colleague James Lindgren documented the tendency of justices to linger longer as the court's prestige and power have grown in the past decades.

snip.......

[serryjw]

1. It's about time

I think that Scotus and Appellate Judurits should have one long tenure for continuity not life....and 18 year term would be good

[SoCalDem]

2. We need a whole new framework

The minimum age to even be considered should be 60.. By that age, someone would have had the time necessary to amass a body of work, and standing in the community. One's children (probably) would be grown, so family pressures would not be a problem.

They should serve 15 year terms ...

at 75 they should retire, unless they are willing to undergo a re-affirmation by congress..

...

[Walt Starr]

3. A constitutional amendment in today's climate has two chances

Slim and none.

[serryjw]

5. Read the article......BOTH

sides agree! I see no purpose in a minimum age for a Jurist on Appellate or Scotus but I think it needs to re-visited. Whom would have believed that 10 years ago Gays could get married in even ONE state. I think 20 years is enough..or (as you read on one proposal) they can stay as a Judge in a lower court if they don't want to retire.

[Neil Lisst]

4. My modest proposal to deal with the problem.

I've never been able to get any support for my proposal, a legislative solution to the constitutional problem of federal judges appointed for life. Since we can't cut the term without enacting a constitutional amendment, we need another way.

I propose we pass a statute that says on the 10th anniversary of a federal judge's appointment, he or she is taken out and shot. Of course, if they resign first, no harm, no foul.

This keeps forcing them to return to the real world, which is a problem with federal judges. There is nothing in the US that has more power and less control than a federal district judge. They ARE the law in every case that comes before them, and none of them are worth a damn after they have been on the bench too long.

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