Our federal district court and circuit court judges as well as our federal Supreme Court justices are appointed for life by the President. I am not sure about the terms of all of the state and local judges, but I believe the majority of them are either elected or appointed for specified terms. Whatever they are, I don't like the idea of life appointments.
I talked previously about the fact that I am not in favor of political appointments of judges but neither am I in favor of judges, particularly politically appointed judges, being appointed for life. I think, just as I believe with our Congressmen and Senators, that it is important to limit judges to a defined term. I think if they are in office too long they forget why they are there and what they are there for and, just as seems to happen with our people in Congress, they get caught up in partisan politics, power games, and ego trips and loose sight of the ideals of justice in America.
As I said in "The Issues, No. 41", I believe judges should be elected on their merits. In the case of our federal judges and our Supreme Court Justices and any other federal, state, or local judges who may be currently appointed for life, I believe they also should be elected on their merits and I believe they should serve terms of no longer than six years. I also believe they should be limited to one term only and not be allowed to succeed themselves in office. I don't believe being a judge, anymore than I believe being a Congressman or a Senator, should be a career. Those jobs should be a person's temporary voluntary opportunity and commitment to improve life in the United States and not a personal career choice. We need to constantly have new judges who have recently come to the bench from real life experiences and have not been tainted by politics or life too long away from mainstream America.
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