Curious What DU Thinks: Should Supreme Court Judges Have Life Terms?

[Dinger]

Poll question: Curious What DU Thinks: Should Supreme Court Judges Have Life Terms?

[Mudoria]

1. 10 years should be the maximum for a Justice.

It's sad to see some of them hanging on to the seat while they are at death's door just because they don't want to give up the power they have.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Like who are you thinking of?

[Mudoria]

3. Rehnquist

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. After ten years, they're just getting the hang of the job.

I'd prefer 30 years.

There is regular enough turnover of administrations that as a justice approaches his/her 30 years he/she can gauge whether or not to retire a little early to maintain his own political bent or to sit out the full 30 if it looks like his position will be favored by the administration. With a 30 year term limit they are likely to see at least 3 changes in administration parties so the tendency to not appoint highly partisan jurists should still hold (a tendency observed more often in the breach than the observance by Repubs in the past 25 years). It allows the jurist independence from the person and party that appointed him. It would also allow them to retire in dignity, to write their memoirs, rather than having them die in the saddle - after 30 years of making some of the toughest decisions the country faces it is a shame they feel they must hang on to the last possible moment. They DESERVE retirement.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

4. yes.

[TheCoxwain]

5. 10 years sounds about right ....cannot be renominated.

This will preserve the purity of judgment.

[BlooInBloo]

21. Federalist 78.

[Igel]

28. One important feature of the law is that it changes slowly.

If you want to invest or built something for decades, you want to know that the laws aren't going to change much over that time period. You want stability and predictability, which means change should be slow, even if desirable.

You also want the SCOTUS to realize that they have to live with their legal decisions. If they make a decision, they should have to watch how it plays out. If they root it in law and only the law, Congress can change the portions of law; if they root a decision in "being sympathetic" then five years later they may see that while it's great in one case it sucks in another--and it's hard for the Congress to fix it.

Having the entire staff of the SCOTUS changeover in the course of a decade would make faster change possible; it would also ensure that they'd mostly escape the consequences of their decisions. Both are bad. They should remain as judges as long as they're competent.

[havocmom]

7. In or out of jail?

Cuz some should be behind bars fer sur.

[baldguy]

8. Yes, but it should be easier to remove them.

For about a year - most of two terms - Renquist was a Justice in name only.

[Occam Bandage]

9. Shorter terms would lead to political pressures, whether they can be renominated or not.

A 50-year-old appointee would naturally have as a concern getting a job upon leaving office at 60--meaning they would be concerned with not just the law, but also with pleasing potential allies/employers. The last thing we would need is a justice in their ninth year casting a deciding vote in favor of corporations in a labor-law case because they've been offered a plush, multi-million-dollar job at a corporate think-tank after their retirement in a year.

Better to let them have the Supreme Court until they retire.

[tekisui]

10. Agreed.

No term limits.

[T Wolf]

11. ALL government service should be by citizens-as-participants. But not as careers.

That is what gets us into trouble.

And if you think the political pressure on them would be any more if they were limited in duration, you have not been watching Amerikan history.

Term limits for all branches (and levels) of government should be in place. The specifics can be worked out for each class of our employees, but it was never meant to be a lifetime gig and should not be.

[Booster]

12. I voted no because I think there should be an age cap on the

job. I'd say anyone over 75 should be retired.

[BlooInBloo]

20. Federalist 79.

[depakid]

26. Hamilton's been proven wrong

Impeachment's not an adequate remedy for misconduct or incompetence.

[high density]

13. No

Based on the idea that everything in DC seems to get stacked with old people that can't figure out when to retire.

[CTyankee]

14. That's the way it is in the Constitution and there's a reason for it.

The independence of the judiciary making the final determination of the laws of the land.

We have impeachment as a remedy to abuse of power of a justice.

To change it, we would have to get an amendment passed by 2/3 of the Congress and 3/4 of the states. A difficult bar unless it is a VERY popular and/or a non-controversial issue (like lowering the voting age to 18).

[old mark]

15. Certainly. They MUST be kept independent of political influence,

as much as possible, no matter what the prevailing party. Their function is to guard the Constitution, something they seem to have failed to do during the Bush regime. They are supposed to interpret and explain the Constitution, not make shit up as they go along.

mark

[Duer 157099]

16. Definitely. All who voted Yay for Gore v. Bush definitely need life terms

in prison

[On the Road]

17. Not a Huge Issue for Me,

but a long unrenewable term might make more sense.

[BlooInBloo]

18. Questions like this make it really, really easy to tell those who have read the Federalist Papers...

from those who haven't.

[KittyWampus]

30. Hogwash, scholars have recently suggested amending the Constitution. You're not as informed

as you pretend to be.

[WinkyDink]

19. Yes. No jockeying for post-SCOTUS lobbyist careers.

[JayMusgrove]

22. 12 years should be enough

We need to give lawyers something to keep them honest... like a chance to be on the US Supreme Court, if they keep their practice of law clean.

And every ten years we need a change.

[depakid]

23. I'd support a retirement age

Seems to work well enough in other nations.

[mvd]

32. Same here

What do you think would be the best retirement age? Maybe 80?

[bigwillq]

24. No

And I also believe in term limits for Senators and House Members. They should not be career politicians.

[RoadRage]

25. Answer: Yes now that we're in charge...

No when the republicans are...

Seriously - I think they should be nominated, but every 2 years (November) 1 justice is put on all ballots and can be voted out if more then 65% of the country wants them to be gone due to bad legislation.. this might keep the extremes (on both sides) from legislating from their values instead of those viewed by the entire country.

Say Gay Marriage is viewed upon favorably by 70% of the country in the next 10 years.. but 6 of the justices are still opposed to it... they would look more seriously at the overall temp of the nation instead of sticking with their own political ideologies.

But, by the same token.. it takes a large majority to kick someone out.. and it's left up to the PEOPLE'S vote.. not votes by the house or the senate - NO POLITICIANS involved.. just a vote of the people.

None of this will happen of course. :)

[Occam Bandage]

27. Heck, why not just let people vote directly on SCOTUS cases?

Who cares what's legal and what's not? That's lame. We should just focus on what is politically popular at the moment and what is not.

[Igel]

31. We're talking judges, right?

They shouldn't be legislating; we have a different branch for that.

They shouldn't be ruling on their values: There should be cases where all 9 of them say, "This is a sad case, and we are in anguish that we have to decide the case this way. We are not going to try to reinterpret things to allow Congress to avoid its responsibility, even if 99% of the American public thinks the law is wrong. However, the law and the Constitution are clear--and, we believe, in deep need of revision."

[rasputin1952]

29. The specific reason that USSC Judges have Lifetime Appts...

is really pretty simple, they are supposed to be non-partisan, and the last line of defense for the Constitution.

Of course, partisanship has always played a part in the make-up of the court, but the 2-4-6-lifetime has worked pretty well, I'm not willing to scrap it for a very short term gain.

As a last resort, USSC Judges can be impeached, tried and removed from the court.

[stillcool]

33. it's in the Constitution...

I guess that doesn't matter, but I always thought it was so the Court was balanced. I suppose if the Constitution, and the Rule of Law were still followed we wouldn't be in the shape we're in, and neither would the Supreme Court.

[Zynx]

34. Yes. It serves as a check against temporary political changes that may be more

radical one way or the other than is prudent.