U.S. Circuit Judge Pauline Newman lost her legal challenge to a suspension over concerns of mental deterioration. A judge rejected her constitutional challenge to the law underlying her suspension.
Since the Supreme Court is full of Originalists now, let’s think the way the farmers would have thought. When they wrote “lifetime appointments” into the Constitution, the average life expectancy for a male child at birth was 35 years. But that counts a lot of infant and child deaths, not to mention deaths due to military service. A man who managed to make it to 50 years old in 1789 would probably have at least 21 years left. Source
So, all lifetime appointments should be forced to retire at 71, because that’s how long a lifetime appointment in 1789 would have lasted. Hey, Clarence, will you go along with my thorough analysis if I give you a “gratuity” afterwards?
“Yet the average lifespan of the 56
signers to the Declaration of Independence was 66 years, and a quarter of them
(including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin) lived to 80 or older.”
The average age of the signers, when they signed the DOI, was something like 26 or some really young age. Washington was practically venerable at like 40 or 45.
I don’t think your example portrays originalism. They could have said “Until they reach the age of average life expectancy” then but instead went with life time appointments when in good behavior. A lifetime being serving until that judge dies, unless they’ve given up their seat.
To change lifetime appointments we’d need a constitutional amendment.
Your using logic and facts to drive your conclusions, though. You’re supposed to do it the other way around: start with your conclusion, and cherry-pick facts to reach it. Once you learn that, you, too can be a Conservate SC Justice!
Your example is actually much closer to Living Constitutionalism which based on this comment I’m going to assume you probably don’t want to be criticizing.
Originalism is tethered to textualism which is antithetical to your analogy reading words out of text.
Since the Supreme Court is full of Originalists now, let’s think the way the farmers would have thought. When they wrote “lifetime appointments” into the Constitution, the average life expectancy for a male child at birth was 35 years. But that counts a lot of infant and child deaths, not to mention deaths due to military service. A man who managed to make it to 50 years old in 1789 would probably have at least 21 years left. Source
So, all lifetime appointments should be forced to retire at 71, because that’s how long a lifetime appointment in 1789 would have lasted. Hey, Clarence, will you go along with my thorough analysis if I give you a “gratuity” afterwards?
Ok, let’s say 80.
“Yet the average lifespan of the 56 signers to the Declaration of Independence was 66 years, and a quarter of them (including Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin) lived to 80 or older.”
https://populationeducation.org/sites/default/files/resource_files/SSYL article Jan 2013 - Life Expectancy.pdf
The average age of the signers, when they signed the DOI, was something like 26 or some really young age. Washington was practically venerable at like 40 or 45.
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I don’t think your example portrays originalism. They could have said “Until they reach the age of average life expectancy” then but instead went with life time appointments when in good behavior. A lifetime being serving until that judge dies, unless they’ve given up their seat.
To change lifetime appointments we’d need a constitutional amendment.
Your using logic and facts to drive your conclusions, though. You’re supposed to do it the other way around: start with your conclusion, and cherry-pick facts to reach it. Once you learn that, you, too can be a Conservate SC Justice!
Your example is actually much closer to Living Constitutionalism which based on this comment I’m going to assume you probably don’t want to be criticizing.
Originalism is tethered to textualism which is antithetical to your analogy reading words out of text.