ReConfirm Supreme Court Justices

[Richard Coleman]

Lemme ask you guys something: Do you think it would be a good idea if instead of being appointed for life (reminiscent of royalty) SCJs had to be re-confirmed say, every 10 years or so?

FWIW, my 2 cents is that lifetime appointments is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest screwups the founders did.
Right up there with allowing slavery.

[Tracy Riddle]

I guess the idea behind lifetime appointments for SCOTUS was that it was supposed to elevate them above partisan politics. That hasn't worked out so well (Bush vs Gore). It might be a good idea to reconfirm them, but since the Senate is involved it probably wouldn't change things much.

[David Guyatt]

Political patronage/appointment is probably the worst of all systems, I think.

We had a similar sort of thing in the UK where High Court Judges, called puisne judges, were appointed by the Queen upon the advice of the prime minister and lord chancellor (a cabinet level politician in charge of the courts system).

However, in 2005 under reforms, appointment of pusine judges are now made by a non-political public body (the Judicial Appointments Commission) on "merit alone". This change was made to eradicate the whole concept of politically driven appointments.

I suppose it too early to make a judgement call whether this new system works better than the old political one, but I don't suppose it could be any worse. The true separation of powers is a reasonable safeguard, I think.

Judges previously were appointed for life and could only be removed if they showed mental incompetence -- something that doddery old men tend to lean towards sometimes. This has changed and nowadays judges can be removed for bringing the judiciary into disrepute.

[Peter Lemkin]

Lemme ask you guys something: Do you think it would be a good idea if instead of being appointed for life (reminiscent of royalty) SCJs had to be re-confirmed say, every 10 years or so?

FWIW, my 2 cents is that lifetime appointments is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest screwups the founders did.
Right up there with allowing slavery.

I have lost faith totally in the American political 'system'. It is rotten, corrupted and bought-out to the core - has been for a looooong time - and was ratcheted up worse on 11/22/53 and again on 9-11-01 - with slow strangulation of the Constitutional protections and laws [domestic and international] throughout that period. Life appointment is a terrible idea. The first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay set the tone. He stated publicly, "Those who own the US ought to govern it."...and that has been the standard used for SC appointments and the credo they follow, with a few [very few] exceptions. Again, I have little to NO faith in the system and believe it needs nothing less than dismantling and replacement. That said, I think that SCJs should have to be subject to thumbs up or thumbs down as often as possible [every House election - but they too are bums - along with the Senate and Presidency, IMHO]. The system is sick and can not be reformed - it can only be trashed and replaced with a completely different one with new paradigms and a new morality - not to mention one that is in fact [not just in name] bottom-up and not [as now] top-down.