There was an interesting article in the Sunday paper about a proposal to effectively limit the terms of Supreme Court Justices, who are appointed for life, as outlined in the Constitution.
According to the article, the average tenure in the Court was about fifteen years, up until fairly recently. Now, the average tenure is about twenty-five years. Some people feel that this represents a great deal of drag on the relevance of the Court to current political opinion. Others feel that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, as the Court has to be able to, and willing to, take actions which are not always in tune with current thought.
But how to get around that Constitutional commandment? One concept is to appoint the Justices to the Federal judiciary for life, and to limit their presence on the court to eighteen years. After that point, the Justice would be considered a Senior Justice, available for consultation and for presiding on other Federal courts, but would no longer participate in the daily actions of the Supreme Court.
I think it makes a great deal of sense.
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