Today in Supreme Court History: January 12, 1932

1/12/1932: Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes resigns from the Supreme Court.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

Comments

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Many believed Holmes stayed on the Supreme Court too long. He lost too much off the old fast ball, let's say.

The appropriate time to retire is an ongoing debate, both for the Supreme Court and lower courts. This would hold without fixed age or term limits in various cases. Such things reduce the problem.

Another thing that tempers the problem in the federal system with good behavior tenure (sometimes wrongly seen as "life tenure" though realistically that might be true) applies to lower courts.

Lower court judges might be kept from trying cases without impeachment, which is somewhat controversial.

The question then arises if inability to serve (as Alexander Hamilton noted in the Federalist Papers, that's a subjective term) can even be used as a ground for impeachment. This argument went back to the impeachment of Judge Pickering in 1803.

Hamilton, in an aside, assumed insanity made a judge unfit to serve. What did he think should be done if a sitting judge was found insane? It wasn't covered in the op-ed and that's up to us.

Ditto all these issues as the issue of old and/or decrepit judges is more likely to arise in the 21st Century.