danivon wrote:Perhaps a Constitutional Amendment would be the most it needs. Not being an expert, I don't know if it could be done more easily than that.

Yes, it would take an amendment. Article 3 Section 1: "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behavior..." That means it's a job for life unless impeached and convicted. This is not a part of the Constitution that's in any dispute.

Given how few amendments we've had, how seriously we take the process, and how difficult it is, I believe that it would take a truly outrageous display of dementia before there'd be enough of a public clamor to support an amendment - maybe two or three outrageous displays - all on slow news days.

Interestingly, something much like this has already taken place as regards the Presidency. Eisenhower had a heart attack while in office, which got the ball rolling, but the real impetus behind the 25th Amendment was the shooting of JFK. What if that bullet had been a half inch less accurate and JFK had suffered immense brain damage but not been killed? It took a few years, even so, before the 25th took effect. It's key part reads:

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

A USSC with eight good members and one loon isn't quite as handicapped as an Oval Office with one loon. (Okay... post your joke - go ahead.) But it's a little surprising that when they worked out the 25th they didn't include a section for the USSC. Easy enough: all Justices but the loon must agree to declare the one Justice incapacitated.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fif ... nstitution

I am not aware of any supreme court justiice in recent memory becoming incompetent due to age. Justice Stevens retired at age 90 but I don't recall such stories about him. I suspect the nature of the job keeps supreme court members more mentally fit than the rest of fhe population. Also, I think the job would become very unpleasant if one wasn't still sharp. You can be a U.S. senator or even a president and start to mentally decline and still do your job, but with the tremendous amounts of recading and writing that justices have to do the job would become torture. My guess justices resign at about the right time and we don't need to do anything about it.

You can be a U.S. senator or even a president and start to mentally decline and still do your job

,

President Wilson was incapacitated for some months. His wife essentially ran the government it was said. She was the only communication to him, and she both selcted ccommunicatiuons and returned them... She shielded him from his VP and cabinet till he was able to communicate on his own.
That was the first instance of pressure for the 25th amendment...

freeman2 wrote:I am not aware of any supreme court justiice in recent memory becoming incompetent due to age. ... My guess justices resign at about the right time and we don't need to do anything about it.

I recommend you read The Brethren by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong. (Not because of this thread but because it's just a great read!) Not that Thurgood Marshall was ever the sharpest guy on the court, but in his last years he had certainly become less able. You say Justices must do so much reading and writing... not when it's done in their name by their loyal clerks. That's Marshall; on to Douglas...

When William O. Douglas, at age 76, suffered a stroke, "Seven of his fellow justices voted to postpone until the next term any argued case in which Douglas's vote might make a difference." He was finally persuaded to retire, and did so, but then refused to acknowledge that he had in fact done so. I quote at length from Wikipedia because it's such a weird story:

The retirement of Douglas from the court introduced much confusion and difficulty, when he assumed that he could take senior status, and when he tried to continue serving. According to Woodward and Armstrong, Douglas refused to accept his own decision to retire, and he tried to continue participating in the Court's cases well into 1976, after Stevens had taken his seat. Douglas reacted with outrage when returning to his old chambers to discover that his clerks had been reassigned to Stevens, and attempted to file opinions in cases whose arguments he had heard before his retirement. Burger ordered all Justices, clerks, and other staffers to refuse to assist Douglas in these efforts, and when Douglas attempted in March 1976 to hear arguments in a capital punishment case (Gregg v. Georgia), the nine sitting Justices signed a formal letter informing him that his retirement had ended his official duties on the Court. It was only then that Douglas stopped attempting to participate in Supreme Court business.[29] His behavior has been attributed to the condition called anosognosia following his stroke, a neuropsychological presentation in which the affected person is unaware and unable to acknowledge disease in himself. It also often results in defects in reasoning, decision making, emotions, and feeling.[3

I of course can't attest to what you may consider "recent memory", but these two guys were liberal heroes of my youth - I remember them well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_O._Douglas

Here's an article that contradicts your final sentence - that we need do nothing about a Justice becoming incompetent. It's short enough. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jacob-m-a ... 66179.html

The gist:

What is clear is that, soon enough, the technological prowess of heroic medicine will come face to face with the politicization of the judiciary, likely over the incapacitated body of a critically-ill justice. We need to set up neutral rules well in advance of such a crisis.

Great story Purple. Thanks for posting.

geojanes wrote:Great story Purple. Thanks for posting.

We really need a like button. (again)

Given that Marshall and Douglas were two of the court's most liberal justices, I am quite familiar with them Purple. I was aware that Marshall had his clerks do much of the work and I am sure age didn't help that propensity. Thanks for the info on Douglas.

I was essentially responding to the implication by RJ that we should have some sort of mandatory retirement age for supreme court justices. I still would contend that the evidence you cite does not indicate a need for that. Douglas declined relatively early and Marshall was always a bit lazy. And there was another justice referred to who declined back in the early 20th century--it hardly seems like a crisis. And it appears that the Douglas crisis was resolved without too much harm.

I agree with the point that we need some mechanism of getting rid of an incompetent justice--whether that occurs from age or other reasons (you can get Alzheimer's in your 50s) I just don't think age should be the criterion.

Freeman:

I was essentially responding to the implication by RJ that we should have some sort of mandatory retirement age for supreme court justices.

I didn't say that. I just said that one often declines as one gets older But recongizing a potential issue and advocating for a particular solution are two different things.

And neither I nor anybody (I think) said that age should be the criterion, but whaddayagonnado?

Freeman: am I hallucinating or does your avatar change every five minutes? (Or both?)

If you have an unspecified avatar, it is auto selected for randomness.

But the same few keep showing up.

Freeman: select a %$&^! avatar - I'm visually oriented, and so as it is now I can only assume you are schizophrenic.

Purple wrote:But the same few keep showing up.

Freeman: select a %$&^! avatar - I'm visually oriented, and so as it is now I can only assume you are schizophrenic.

Really need a like button.

programming

Ray Jay wrote:Freeman:

I was essentially responding to the implication by RJ that we should have some sort of mandatory retirement age for supreme court justices.

I didn't say that. I just said that one often declines as one gets older But recongizing a potential issue and advocating for a particular solution are two different things.

I was the one who suggested a maximum age or a maximum term length. I'm not sure if they are the best idea, or if they would not also have problems - senility and dementia can start at different ages for different people, and act in different ways.

Still, there should be a way to head off issues like that without them becoming a massive political football.

Purple wrote:But the same few keep showing up.

There is a limited selection of avatars in the unassigned randomness.