Term Limits for the Supreme Court?

The Wall Street Journal's John Fund raises the issue, but makes a wholly unpersuasive case. Witness the following, which basically says that (1) older persons can't possibly comprehend the complexities of the globalist age, and (2) no other industrialized nation affords their justices life tenure:

The Framers of the Constitution never envisioned a judiciary as powerful as today's courts. But with that unaccountable power has come an erosion of the court's legitimacy. Many people increasingly question if elderly justices with thought patterns set a half-century ago can fully comprehend court cases that encompass the globalization of the world economy or file-sharing on the Internet. "The Founders could not foresee that increases in longevity would imperil the rotation in powerful office essential to representative government," write former law school deans Roger Cramton and Paul Carrington.

Indeed the life tenure for justices in our nation's highest court is an anomaly. No other industrialized democracy has embraced life tenure for its judges, and of the 50 states only Rhode Island appoints its state Supreme Court justices for life. Britain has a mandatory retirement age for its top jurists, while Germany, Italy, Spain and France all appoint them for a fixed number of years.

Since when did John Fund style himself after Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose penchant for looking to extraneous sources of law has raised the hackles of conservatives and constitutionalists alike?

Life tenure affords federal judges a degree of independence that is critical to our tripartite system of government. On this, the Framers were clear. See Federalist No. 78:

If, then, the courts of justice are to be considered as the bulwarks of a limited Constitution against legislative encroachments, this consideration will afford a strong argument for the permanent tenure of judicial offices, since nothing will contribute so much as this to that independent spirit in the judges which must be essential to the faithful performance of so arduous a duty.

Regrettably, today's courts have not seen to it that they serve as bulwarks against those legislative encroachements that either ignore or eviscerate the privileges and immunities of the citizenry. Unless a "fundamental" interest or a "suspect classification" is at issue in equal protection jurisprudence, the courts operate as little more than another layer of bureaucracy that lends its sanction to tutelary government power.

If there is any human resources issue that is important with regard to the judiciary, it is the level of pay. Competent and successful attorneys must sacrifice a great deal in forgone income to become a judge. Granted, judges are not consigned to the poorhouse, but the relatively low level of pay surely operates as a deterrent in getting the highest quality legal professionals.

What probably motivates many attorneys to become judges is the prestige and the general "call to service" that inspires many people to enter a particular profession. I'm not sure if there has been any literature addressing the issue, but one would think that Judge Posner has contemplated it. Time to hop on to Lexis...