Stephen Chapman, in his July 4 column commenting on the retirement of Justice Thurgood Marshall, sounds a clarion call for ”a constitutional amendment setting a mandatory retirement age” for U.S. Supreme Court justices.
Such a requirement was included in a constitutional amendment dealing with the composition and jurisdiction of the court which passed the Senate by a vote of 58 to 19 in May 1954. It was later buried in the House of Representatives and never revived.
This amendment, proposed by Sen. John Marshall Butler (R-Md.), would have: fixed the number of justices at nine; mandated retirement at 75;
rendered justices ineligible to become president or vice president for 5 years after leaving the court and, in constitutional cases, removed from Congress any power to impair the appellate jurisdiction of the court.
With regard to Mr. Chapman`s suggestion, if now formally advanced, one can reasonably surmise ”the past is prologue.”
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