Interesting that you preface this post praising the wisdom of lifetime appointments to promote an apolitical judiciary when the post itself is devoted to the impact of Justices' political partisanships. Apparently without awareness of the contradiction.

That is exactly what I was thinking as I read this post. Only in this last week I'd read an explanation of why Supreme Court Justices were given a lifetime position in the Constitution and thought then "Well, that isn't working now, is it!". The blatant partisanship of appointments resulting in overt, uncontrollable and unaccountable partisanship of majority decisions, cheerfully waves the banner of corruption without fear of consequences.

I discovered in my rambling researches that only one Associate Justice has ever been impeached (about a century ago) but none has ever been removed so the current sitting Justices can feel very secure about their tenure, no matter how outrageous their rulings are, or their speech or behavior, in spite of the Constitution's shall hold their offices during good behaviour clause.

As much as I like TheStig's suggestion of a code of ethics, I doubt that this would make any more difference than the good behaviour mentioned in the Constitution. Impeachment is a no-go since the only way it could possibly work is if both the House and Senate had opposite partisan majorities to that of the Justice targeted. Besides, it just wouldn't be in any way a good thing to do - no positives there for anybody unless the Justice had committed, and been found guilty of, a high crime.

So what to do?

Elizabeth,

You're not seriously suggesting that term limits for the judiciary would be less political, are you?
I wouldn't favor term limits either as the beginning and end of terms would likely coincide with either the election of a third of the Senate or the President or both. I can only see a seesawing trend in Supreme Court partisanship arising from that, with a resultant carousel of rulings followed by reviews. Dizzying!

Instead, I favor a mandatory retirement age with Justices free to choose to step down any time before that, according to their personal decisions. It isn't ideal either but it's better than any previous alternative I've looked at.

It also has one great advantage, highlighted for me by former Justice Stevens who admitted that what convinced him to retire was a "senior moment" when reading a decision from the bench. I'm not so confident that all of us recognize, or admit to, the first signs of "senior moments" let alone act upon them before they become "the senior phase" with such frequency of "senior moments" that they blur into one another.

In the comments sections following CW's How Would You Amend The Constitution? and FTP[301] - Seven More Amendments, I posited the idea of mandatory retirement at age 60. After a brief mental tussle with the figure, I finally settled on 60 as an age at which all intellectual faculties are likely to be in very good order and, more importantly to my mind, they would have earned enough by this time to retire comfortably if that's what they chose to do.

I sense contention coming and, while this is the best suggestion I have at the moment, I am very willing to consider other ideas. :-)

Congress has the power to prune the number of seats or add more. Both options have been exercised, and the size of the court has varied from a low of six (initially) to as high as ten (briefly).

Congress can also choose not fill a seat. Or fill it with Clarence Thomas, whose seat often seems mostly vacant.

The rich and powerful enjoy hobnobbing with The Supremes and ply them with food, drink, games transportation and honoraria. The Supreme Court has no Code of Ethics (yet).

In short, no Justice is a political island.

Interesting that you preface this post praising the wisdom of lifetime appointments to promote an apolitical judiciary when the post itself is devoted to the impact of Justices' political partisanships. Apparently without awareness of the contradiction.

You're not seriously suggesting that term limits for the judiciary would be less political, are you?

I mean, let's face it, next to nothing these days is apolitical. But, lifetime appointments to the judiciary, in general, and to the Supreme Court, in particular, are far less political than any other option I can think of.

Are you saying that judges should be elected?

(Sorry for the duplication but, I was missing a couple of commas. Heh. )

Interesting that you preface this post praising the wisdom of lifetime appointments to promote an apolitical judiciary when the post itself is devoted to the impact of Justices' political partisanships. Apparently without awareness of the contradiction.

You're not seriously suggesting that term limits for the judiciary would be less political, are you?

I mean, let's face it, next to nothing these days is apolitical. But, lifetime appointments to the judiciary in general, and to the Supreme Court, in particular are far less political than any other option I can think of.

Are you saying that judges should be elected?

Lifetime appointments IN CONJUNCTION WITH a POWERLESS court were intended to keep politics out of judicial decisions. When the court decided to gift itself with the political power to make its decisions determinative, instead of merely advisory, it became, by definition, "political."

And because the court made itself inherently political lifetime appointments do not, and cannot, prevent, or even inhibit, politics in court decisions. Rather they merely insulate Justices from any accountability, leaving us worse off than if they were elected or appointed.

Republicans were the first to truly recognize reality and seek to capitalize on it by devoting themselves for half a century to packing the court with "conservative" justices. A plan which finally came to fruition under George Bush giving us our current court which is so partisan rampant speculation on the "timing" of resignations and the effect on the court of appointments by "liberal" vs "conservative" Presidents occur without anyone apparently even noticing that the court is SUPPOSED to be objective and apolitical.

A court that's an unelected, uncontrollable, unaccountable extension of whichever party happened to hold the Presidency, and/or control the Senate when vacancies arose is worse than useless. Instead of getting nonpartisan opinions we get irresponsible ones, with The People having NO say in the laws governing them. The whole point of founding this nation was to repudiate and prevent exactly that.

The idea of filibustering nominees to manipulate even the party that gets to appoint Justices, and the indifference the concept apparently generates, simply illustrates that both the vision of the founding fathers, and the constitution which was supposed to implement it, are both long dead. Thanks to the "vigilance" in protecting our freedoms by a public, and media, that are, oh, so concerned! at the prospect of the NSA knowing who we're telephoning, but totally unconcerned over unelected lifetime appointees invested with unlimited power.

Forgive my going off-topic, but to my mind the entire debate is a gross example of the old cliche "can't see the forest for the trees."