Should Supreme Court Justices continue to have life tenure? Five of the nine Justices are older than 70, prompting questions about how long they should be able to serve.

• Position: DEBATE

YES Stripping rife tenure from Supreme Court Justices would "fix" a nonexistent problem and threaten America's independent judiciary.

There is no evidence that Justices need to be forced to retire. Many of our greatest Justices, including Oliver Wendell Holmes and William Brennan, have served honorably on the Court welt into old age. The argument that old people make bad judges smacks of age discrimination.

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Since 1787, the Constitution has granted Supreme Court Justices and most federal judges the right to hold their offices until they die or retire. It is one of the most important guarantees in the Constitution of an independent judiciary.

It's life tenure that allows judges to interpret the taw free from the day-to-day political pressures that the executive and legislative branches of government face. Those pressures mean that Congress and the President sometimes fail to see, or choose to ignore, the bigger, longer-term picture in issues ranging from civil rights to presidential authority.

Furthermore, abolishing life tenure for Supreme Court Justices would require a constitutional amendment. This would be a time-consuming and costly process that would distract us from the many real problems facing our society. In addition, such an amendment would set a dangerous precedent for more serious threats to our independent judiciary, such as giving state and local judges shorter terms of office or making it easier for politicians to fire them.

When it comes to the Life tenure of Supreme Court Justices, our Constitution is working just fine, and it would be foolish to tamper with it.

--NEIL M. RICHARDS, PROFESSOR OF LAW

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

NO We often say Supreme Court Justices have "life tenure," but the Constitution actually says they can hold their offices as tong as they maintain "good behavior."

This Language suggests that Justices have a duty to retire when they are no...