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A Modest Proposal for Supreme Court Reform [1]
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Date: 2023-04-30
A possible solution the Supreme Court mess that we have. It is clear that the Justices view themselves as politicians with a lifetime appointment, and that they never have to respond to the public. At the time they are in “service” they can push their own political views, and those of people who support them financially.
At the same time they are devaluing a legal education. In law school, you are taught to study cases to understand the reasoning of judges, and what that means for your case. Essentially, precedent is vital, since that is the law. However, the current crop do not respect precedent, and make decisions on the fly. You cannot predict a decision based on existing law, but you can based on the political leanings of the justices.
Some have suggested that we institute term limits. Essentially, allowing each President to have some impact on the Court. However, how does that eliminate the corrupt practices of the justices, it does not. And 18 years is a long time to wait to get rid of a poor and corrupt justice. And, if a person like Leonard Leo, the Kochs, or Harlan Crow to buy a “Justice” and get full value.
I think that the right solution is to have a continuous flow of Justices into the Supreme Court. Every District Court Judge and Appellate judge would be subject to selection to the Supreme Court. Essentially, all of the judges would be subject to random selection. Each year 13 of them would become a Justice and make decisions on cases selected by the previous year’s judges. So essentially, judges would not even select the cases they would hear. This would then encourage the Court to take cases that need resolution, and not accept cases they view as potentially advancing their political beliefs, because the next year the judges deciding the case might be of the opposite political faction.
And yes, we might end up with a Judge as bad as Kacsmaryk. But it would only be for one year, as opposed to having Thomas (32 years), Kavanaugh (5 years), Roberts (18 years), Alito(18 years) serve interminably. It should encourage Justices to write well reasoned opinions that will withstand the test of time, to pay attention to precedent, and only reverse precedent if there are strong reasons.
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