I understand you want judges to be unbiased and they should be free to make decisions without worrying about their jobs. However the fact these Judges are pretty political in general and stick with their party lines. Secondly the law is pretty much whatever someone thinks up. There is really no right or wrong answer. They just make stuff up. This is what pissed me off about my law classes. Even if I found the clauses that supported my answer if the professor didn't like it he would take some points off. The average age of Supreme court justice is 70 years old. None of these guys even grew up with the internet. Yet their rules will determine the future of the country. They also almost exclusively went to a few schools (Harvard/Yale). You probably don't want a 25 year on supreme court. I don't want a 70 year old on there either. The median of age of US population is 37. How about we have 20 year term limits and max age of 70.
i personally don't know. but i'm looking forward to bigtexxx's nuanced and informed statements and opinions.
For Supreme court justices - no, like many things this is a vestigial reminder of our outdated, effectively unamendable constitution. In the old days people died younger, it wasn't a big deal. Now installing somebody who will reign for 30 years like a Duke or a Prince is very important. Kind of ridiculous. It should be staggered 10-year terms. As a caveat, however, the confirmation games need to stop if it's going to be more frequent. Also, I would consider leaving the Circuit and district court judges as lifetime insofar as the delays in filling these vacancies would be intractable, given that instead of 9 there are nearly 1000 of these to fill - cases would pile up and justice would be delayed and denied - it would be unamanageable absent some sort of super-fast track system for filling vacancies.
"Growing up with the internet" seems to be an odd litmus test made up by someone born in the past 20-25 years. The vast majority of the country didn't "grow up with the internet." The entire post seems ageist.
It makes sense in the context of the justices making complicated decisions about technology issues like Net neutrality, when half of them didn't know how to use a computer and couldn't even program the clock on a Microwave, which was the case during much of the 90's and 00's.
I'm for staggered 18 year terms (something Rick Perry oddly enough campaigned on). That means every presidential term gets two supreme court appointments. Thats enough movement to where we just might accept that the political orientation of the court will shift from term to term as opposed to what we have now where political orientation stagnates for decades at a time and people get furious when it might shift. And no thanks to our founders for making the constitution practically impossible to amend. Granted they didn't forsee a country of 50 states so getting the requisite majority of state legislatures is practically impossible today but man does it suck that we can't amend things like this.
Yup, all of the homage paid to the Constitution and its signficance at the time tends to obscure the fact that its default towards the status quo has become a potentially catastrophic bug rather than a feature.
Yes, it puts too much power in unelected judges. Case in point Scalia. Term limits maybe a limit of 16 yrs, maybe somewhat less should be enough to keep them from worrying about momentary pressures.
The last thing this country needs is the disgusting election system infiltrating the highest court. You can see the effect election cycles have on politicians.
I'm with Sam and Gee on this one. Max of one term, staggered out. I get the reason why you don't want them subject to political waves, but lifetime appointment gives them too much power and creates a branch of government that really has no "checks and balances." When a party stacks the court the ramifications can last for decades with the people having no real recourse but to wish death in the right years on judges.
I always have a when the thread title asks a different question than the poll question. Yes, I think judges should have life time appointments. No, I do not think judges should have term limits.
Life time appointees is too much for a position that is appointed and is truly the highest level of our government. Essentially the entire country, including congress and the president could be overruled by 5 people. After 15 years, a new judge should be appointed as an 'internship' for a couple years to the existing judge. This would prevent vacancies and new judges not being prepared.
I favor all kind of changes to term limits. Just throwing out some numbers... Judges should have term limits of 18 years. President should be limited to one consecutive term of 8 years. House members should be limited to 2 consecutive terms of 6 years each. Senate members should have be limited to 2 consecutive terms of 8 years each. Everyone can run again for President and Congress after 10 years hiatus. Less election and more chance at actual governance.
The other important thing to note is that when the constitution was created, the US didn't really have organized political parties. Appointing a Supreme Court justice was strictly about finding qualified legal minds without really getting into the weeds about whether the nominee might support specific policies or legal ideas. Over time, we've added political litmus test requirements. The logic behind no term limits was to find smart legal minds and insulate them from political pressure.We still find smart legal minds but these are now inherently political appointments and as such we should regulate Supreme Court terms. Supreme Court justices don't get elections so they should get term limits instead. Lets stop pretending that the Supreme Court of today is what the Founders intended. The Supreme Court represents the same level of partisanship as the rest of government (with some exceptions here and there). Keep the lifetime appointments with the lower courts as its clear that Congress is incapable of respecting the process of appointments anymore and we'd end up with an absurd amount of vacancies without lifetime appointments at the lower level.
Hahah, while I too loved Robert DeNiro and Ann Hathaway in "The Intern" - the idea of a judge having to serve an "internship" while rife with comedic possiblity, is absurd. Do you know (and I'm guessing you don't) that most federal court opinions are written by clerks in their 20's who ahve never tried, let alone judged, a case in their life? This is true all the way up to the Supreme Court level. I assume this shocks your conscience.
That isnt the point. I made my point and you completely ignored it, instead choosing to ramble on about something completely different. Typical SamFisher style. Nobody takes you serious.
