I recently had occasion to have a short discussion with one of the candidates for the Sixth District Congressional seat. Part of that discussion revolved around the issue of term limits, and the candidate was asked their position on the same. The response produced some interesting takes, especially since the idea of term limits for members of Congress seemed not to be high on the candidate’s agenda.
However, the concept of such limits on Supreme Court members was approached somewhat differently. The candidate suggested that SCOTUS terms should definitely be limited, but an additional suggestion was that some members of the Court could be appointed for life tenure, while others would be term-limited.
An interesting idea and one which would probably require a good deal of conversation to determine which seats on the court would be governed as term-limited or life.
The discussion also pointed out that, when the Constitution was written, Article III only stipulated that “The Judges, both of the Supreme and Inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour…” and that the average life expectancy of a male in 1800 was 40 years of age, not the 74.7 years as is now the case.
In fact, of the original six Justices, all lived beyond that 40-year life expectancy; the shortest was James Iredell, who died at 48, 10 years after his appointment to the Court.
Also, of those six Justices, four lived for 11 years or less after their appointment. John Jay, the Chief Justice, was the longest-lived, at 84 years, although he resigned from the Court after only five years.
Today, the oldest serving Court member is Clarence Thomas, aged 74, who has served on the Court for 34 years. Samuel Alito, the second-oldest member of the Court at 72, has served for 19 years.
Thomas now ranks as number five on the list of longest-serving Justices and is rapidly creeping up on the next three on the list, the longest of the three, Stephen Johnson Field, who served 34 years, 195 days ending on December 1, 1897. As this is being written, Thomas has served 34 years, 49 days.
The longest serving Justice was William O. Douglas, who served 36 years, 209 days. It remains to be seen whether or not Thomas will equal or exceed that record.
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It seems pretty plain that when the Constitution was written, the founders may have expected that Supreme Court justices would never serve such lengthy terms, either retiring gracefully after relatively short terms, as Justice Jay did, or simply becoming too feeble to serve or dying in office. The only justice appointed to the first Supreme Court to die in office was James Wilson, who died at age 56, nine years after his appointment.
In the 236 years of the Court, 47 justices have died in office; oddly, none between 1955 and 2005, and the largest number succumbed before the twentieth century, when longevity was shorter.
Regardless, the concept of differing terms for justices, while interesting, may be too cumbersome to ever come to fruition but there is widespread agreement among the American electorate that the terms of Court justices should be limited and a generous term of 15 years would seem perfectly appropriate as it would span the terms of several presidents and reduce the prospects of long-term favoritism while still easily allowing the appointment of more experienced judges who could serve such terms before reaching an age at which their mental abilities might come into question.
Regrettably, (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), the only method of achieving term limits for members of the Supreme (or inferior) courts is through a Constitutional Amendment. As long as one of the political parties perceives the current status as favorable to them, no such Amendment will ever be generated in Congress.
