Why should supreme court justices be appointed instead of elected?

Answer 1

Because elected court justices are far more likely to fall under the influence of popular opinion; rule of law is what they are supposed to be ruling on. Beyond that, we want the decisions of that court to be grounded in the Constitution, not in popular opinion. If Supreme Court justices were subject to election, then those who made unpopular but correct rulings would be subject to replacement.

These are undoubtedly some of the problems the Framers anticipated when they wrote the Constitution. They were also careful to make sure neither the President nor Senate had complete control over the appointment process to discourage abuse of power and help maintain the independence of the Judicial Branch.

Article II, Section 2, Clause 2

"[The President] shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments."

For more detail on this subject, see Related Questions, below.

Answer 2

The answer is "no" a thousand times over; let me explain, the fundamental core, of different systems of government that are known

1) Monarchy, is the rule of the King or Queen

2) Constitutional Monarchy, is the rule of the King or Queen, and the Parlaiment

3) A Democracy, is the rule of the citizens, strictly speaking the title of "citizen" carried privelege in ancient times. In ancient Greece only a "gentleman" could be called a "citizen." If you were a "citizen," it meant you owned slaves, could vote, could speak publicly, and probably keep a stable of mistresses even.

4) A Dictatorship, is the rule of power, by the powerful.

5) A Republican Democracy, such as the one in the U.S., is not the rule of the people, although the people are given the right to change the rules, it is not the rule of those in power, but the rule of law.

Because the law governs the land, that means anyone empowered to interpret the law, wields considerable power, even over the people. Because the law is literally everywhere, despite the separation yet cooperation between state and federal law, any person who holds the title of "Judge," would hold the power to sway the masses, and become elected, the danger of having Judges democratically elected, is that it potentially sets up an oligarchial system where only a few families get to be supreme court justices. Hence, the U.S. president MUST have the power to apoint a judge.

There is no greater power in a civilized society, than the understanding of the law; because of that, anyone in the U.S. who is a longtime practicing attorney, or who holds the title of "Judge," must have their power restricted, and they MUST answer to the federal government. If supreme court justices were elected, rather than appointed it would be all too simple a matter of manipulating the law, so that only a select few priveleged families got to be judges, and that leads to corruption.

See, what I am talking about happened once before, namely, in ancient Rome. Rome, I believe, did not have "supreme court justices" but they did have an equivalent, some sort of court of magistrates. However the hell you spell that but anyway; a magistrate, was both a lawyer, and a judge, and they were incredibly powerful in ancient Rome, they could only serve via election. The council of magistrates, which had more or less equal power with the senate, which answered directly to the emperor, was ridiculously corrupt, the founding fathers of the U.S. set up a system where the president appoints, to prevent a corrupt magistrate system which ultimately crippled the Roman government.

Believe me, you do NOT want democratically elected supreme court justices.

To further expound on the above, most U.S. States do have direct election of their State Supreme Court justices, and, while not an unmitigated disaster, still have significant problems. The ABA and several reform-minded judicial reviews have come out recently with recommendations that those states eliminate this direct election, and move to an appointment system (similar to that used for Federal judges).

The primary problems with electing judges are twofold:

1. The electorate is simply completely unqualified to make a technical evaluation of possible candidate's competency and qualification as a judge. Thus, they will have to rely on outside evaluators, who are (almost by definition) subjected to significant political pressures. Thus, it's simply not realistic to expect the electorate to make an informed decision on the quality of each candidate.
2. By forcing a judge to run for office (and, likely, seek re-election), you are exposing those judicial candidates to pressures NOT concerning the law. A judge's primary concern should be interpretation of the law in the existing social/legal framework. There should be NO room for consideration as to the possible political impact that such a ruling might make. That is, it is very bad for a legal system to take politics into consideration when ruling on the technicalities of law. Yet, forcing judges to run for election (or re-election) effectively makes them politicians, which is counter to the entire concept of an independent judiciary (which is founded on judicial competence and independence, rather than democratic principles).

There are significant ways which the current system of appointing US Supreme Court justices is sub-optimal, and could be improved. Allowing for direct elections of the judges is most certainly NOT a way to improve judicial quality.

Answer 3

The election process, especially the fundraising part, might influence how they interpret the law, introducing the potential of compromising their impartiality.