And won’t let me comment, for reasons I cannot explicate or correct, I have to comment on this comment somewhat out of context, but that context, and this quoted language, can be found here:
[Unelected judges given a lifetime tenure, in light of the alleged impeachment power being a Constitutional myth, the Court is unstoppable, something which the present exposure of the rank corruption of Thomas, Alito and others makes especially relevant now.Except Article 3 of the Constitution doesn’t give judges lifetime tenure:
The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.The courts decided that language means “lifetime tenure,” and the courts reserved “resign or die” for Supreme Court justices. Federal judges cannot be forced to resign and leave the job the way the Lovely Wife just did. She can’t even go back to building she worked in for 20 years, for a month after her last day. To do so would endanger her retirement.
Federal judges are required to step down from the active bench, but returning or not is their choice. They are never ”former judges” the way I’m a former teacher. That’s what “during good behavior” means; at least according to the courts. For Justices, it means die, or resign. Why? Because they say so.
I’m not saying that’s a Constitutional crisis; but there is a great deal we accept as “what the Constitution says,” when it isn’t clear that’s what it says at all. “[D]uring good behavior,” after all, could easily and fairly include a required retirement age. The rest of us pretty much serve “under good behavior,” but we have to retire.
I should have been clearer that there is nothing presently, though I think the idea that the Congress and President are going to drastically rewrite the Court organizational laws of the 1790s in time to really make the Court responsible for its excesses and outright corruption is a slender reed to pin hopes on. I hope they do change it but am skeptical that so many well trained lawyers and Constitutional scholars will imagine that that's even a good idea. It is one of the ironies, as I recall from my reading, that the Marbury v Madison decision nullified aspects of that organizational law written by they second Chief Justice and an actual member of the Constitutional Convention who wrote large parts of the articles forming the Courts. While Marshall was not.
ReplyDeleteI always get these urges to attack when the Court term starts.