We Are Seeing The Holes In Our Constitution -- Part 1

The Constitution does allow for the removal of supreme court justices. It is falsely believed they are appointed for life. The Constitution states that the justices shall serve "during times of good behavior".

This means that they can be impeached even of no crime is charged or proven. Justices have to behave, not exemplary, just good.

I suggest reading then House Republican Leader Gerald Ford's letter to the speaker of the house concerning a petion to impeach Justice Wm. A. Douglas in 1970.

http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/700415a.h tm

Only one justice has ever been impeached, but he was not removed from office. That was Samuel Chase in 1805.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Court_of_the_United_St ates


Glenn Flowers

Glenn, you are right in all you said and I knew that Justices could be removed for bad behaviour. BUT ... for all practical purposes, they will NEVER be removed. Maybe if one of them flips out and starts going psycho in front of everyone (or, maybe, shoots someone?). The chance of that is about the square root of zero.
So they really ARE appointed for life in the sense that, they can stay as long AS THEY CHOOSE. The fact that only ONE has ever been impeached and not removed merely proves my point. I believe the leftists realized the potential of exploiting a MAJOR weakness in our overall system sometime around the 1920s and 30s. Notice that FDR tried to "pack the Court" by expanding it to 12 members (was that in 1936?). Why did he feel a need to have a Court that would support his New Deal policies? Why didn't he try to get his friends in House and Senate to introduce some new amendment that would change things about The Court? Watch for my next article on Monday in which I will write about weaknesses and failures of The Court that lead up to the (so-called) Civil War. The South wanted to correct these with their own Ct., but 4 years of bickering prevented them from even HAVING a Court. I guess finally I would say that the problem with The Court is that we can remove them (theoretically) for bad behaviour but not for ideology that we the people disagree with. We CAN do that for Reps and Senators via elections.
--Ray Curtis, Fri Aug. 14, 2009