When United States Supreme Court justices are sworn into office, they are sworn in for life.
Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is eighty-eight (88) years old. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seventy-five (75) years old. Justice Antonin Scalia is seventy-two (72) years old, followed by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who is seventy-one (71) years old. The remainder of the court’s justices’ ages does not get much better. Another thought to ponder is that when Justice Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme Court, she was already sixty-years old. Does anybody see where I’m going with this? In case you don’t, lifetime tenure for justices has outlived its usefulness. To further state the case for a change in a justice’s tenure, some justices have already outlived their states of health. Justice William H. Rehnquist was still in office, yet hospitalized, and was eighty (80) years old when illness took his life in 2005.
When the Constitution was formulated, it provided that justices “shall hold their offices during good behavior”. That means “for as long as he/she shall live". They have the option of resigning or retiring, but, it is not mandatory. Lifetime tenure was given to keep the courts independent of the political branches. In effect, the founding fathers wanted them to have absolute power and independence so that influence was not a factor. Their salaries are not revocable ($214,000 per year), so that neither Congress nor the Senate would be able to threaten them with loss of salary due to unpopular decisions by the justices. – giving them the freedom to vote as they will without fear. That “untouchability” is at the root of the current drive to change all of that. There is but one course of action to have a justice removed: impeachment. No justice has ever been removed through impeachment. What was once a good idea has become an hindrance.
Consider my mother, who is eighty-five (85) years old. She is just about as sharp as ever. Even so, I do not believe she has the soundness of mind to run things all on her own. Things have changed, technology has become more challenging, and even the language of the day is not what she once knew. The justices of the Supreme Court are no different. Do we really need someone who is eighty-eight (88) years old determining Constitutional wording, meaning, and scope? If the mind is still in good shape, what, then, of the body? Justice William Douglass served for nearly thirty-seven (37) years. During the last ten (10) months of his service, after a stroke in 1975. His colleagues decided (unofficially) to make null and void any decisions in which his was the deciding vote. In 2005, Justice William H. Rehnquist was barely able to make it to the podium to swear in President George W. Bush for Bush’s second term. Health concerns aside, it is a bit more troubling to know that a justice in his/her eighties is making the decisions that shape the country for centuries to come. It is time that the “injustices” of the Supreme Court to lose their tenure.
Please join us on Sunday as we delve further into the “Injustices Of The Supreme Court”.
This is blackstarr saying “Vive La Renaissance!”
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