U.S. Supreme Court Justices ought to have term limits.

Hi Tylergraham95, Really interesting response, I'm happy we are able to discuss this in depth as I have actually never witnessed an extended debate on the issue. Rebuttal #1 l Aging and the Supreme Court It appears my opponent charges my statistics with being "HEAVILY skewed" (all caps were deemened necessary). However, did I even appeal to the overall life expectancy at the time? I actually appealed to the ages of the first 5 Supreme Court Justices from the time of the ratification of the Constitution. Which is of course James Wilson, John Jay, William Cushing, John Blair Jr. and John Rutledge.[1] I also appealed to the last 5 Justices who in more recent years passed away as seen on that same list. I did this in order to more properly represent the difference and avoid a rebuttal such as the one you gave. In regards to neuroscience, I was merely refering to the well established fact that one's brain deteriorates over time, even shrinking in size due to the thinning of the cortex.[2] This I believe is a non-controversial note and honestly not key to my argument, but seems to be standard across the board with other countries who have an established retirement age for their judges. Rebuttal #2 l The Supreme Court of Ole My opponent's argument on this matter seems to ignore the fact that PARTISAN individuals such as the President of the United States, is the one who appoints these Justices. To believe that the Supreme Court is a "non-partisan" body of government is simply to live in the theory, rather than reality. It is common knowledge that between the judges there are those who have more liberal or conservative leanings.[3] The reason this is primarily a problem is that a President can select a young candidate for the Supreme Court Justice position, one who of course agrees with his political ideologies (or at least hopes or appears to). The president can then extend his direct influence through the selection of the Justice for the next 20 to 30 years, even after his death. This is entirely too much power to be held by the President, and this change would mitigate that effect as well as ensure that the best candidate is selected, because of their experience and not because the President wants to extend their influence for the next 30 years. Also my opponent addressed that I did not provide any examples of experts on the matter that it weakens my case. I wanted to stand primarily on the merits of my own arguments rather than appealing to authorities, but since he has brought it up, here are a couple examples. This was posted in the Harvard Journal of Law, "This trend has led to significantly less frequent vacancies on the Court, which reduces the efficacy of the democratic check that the appointment process provides on the Court's membership. The increase in the longevity of Justices' tenure means that life tenure now guarantees a much longer tenure on the Court than was the case in 1789 or over most of our constitutional history. Moreover, the combination of less frequent vacancies and longer tenures of office means that when vacancies do arise, there is so much at stake that confirmation battles have become much more intense. Finally, as was detailed in a recent article by Professor David Garrow, the advanced age of some Supreme Court Justices has at times led to a problem of "mental decrepitude" on the Court, whereby some Justices have become physically or mentally unable to fulfill their duties during the final stages of their careers."[4] Also, Paul Carrington, Professor of Law at Duke University proposed the same motion with the The Supreme Court Renewal Act of 2005. Here is a portion of his argument. "Article III of the Constitution of the United States provides that judges of constitutional courts shall serve during “good behavior.” The purpose of that provision was to secure the independence of the federal judiciary from any efforts of others with political power to influence judicial decisions improperly. The term has often been assumed to mean that Supreme Court Justices may hold office until they resign, die or are removed for serious misfeasance. Our nation has greatly benefitted from the exceptional independence of the federal judiciary, but the independence principle does not require lifetime tenure for Justices. The conventional assumption has become unsound because of increases in our longevity and other changes that have increased the tenure of Justices."[5] The truth of the matter is that there are many who would like to see this change made, the only problem is that Constitutional amendments are hard to pass therefore it would probably require a specific circumstance where the weakness of the present system is highlighted in order to drive the will of the people to have their representatives change it. Concluding Remarks: I find it odd that my opponent again chose to charge that my statistics are "skewed" or "irrelevnt." As the direct statistics I drew were from the Supreme Court Justices themselves, I cannot possibly fathom how my opponent came to this conclusion and therefore regards this as a fallacious straw man argument. As has been demonstrated further, an implementation of term limits would limit the power of the executive branch, keep the healthiest and most qualified justices on the bench and ensure that the judicial branch is a relevant product of our government and not the product of an entirely different political atmosphere 25+ years ago. Kind Regards, TrueScotsman [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org... [3] http://supremecourtreview.com... [4] http://papers.ssrn.com... [5] http://paulcarrington.com...