The reason Supreme Court justices are appointed for life is so they are independent. That cuts both ways, protecting both people I agree with, and people I disagree with from having their verdicts influenced by outside forces. Sometimes this is inconvenient for me, but on the whole I prefer it over the alternative. The key is to hold the people who nominate and confirm these justices to account, since they are elected.

>The reason Supreme Court justices are appointed for life is so they are independent

Can't you just make it so it's x years appointment, but you can't be reappointed?

The issue with term limits is that it gives a potential perception of bias related to whatever they do when they leave.

An example of this is in agencies like the FTC, where people leave the regulator and end up in well paid jobs in the companies they are supposed to be regulating. Even if there was no bias in their decision making people point to it and it undermines confidence in the system.

Give them a term limit, and then send them back to their life appointment on the district courts (with a higher salary if you want to sweeten the deal a little).

> (with a higher salary if you want to sweeten the deal a little).

After being on the SC, they'd be set with high-paying speaking and book deals for life, along with deals as paid commentators on all sorts of issues and platforms.

Can’t we do long terms (10-15 years) then? Instead of life, which could be as much as 40 years in some cases

One advantage of lifetime appointments is avoiding the temptation for judges to become corrupted by promises of post-judicial careers.

Not to mention it'd make the majority of turnovers in the supreme court an orderly scheduled event fair between parties.

They are meant to be appointing an independent judiciary applying precedent and law as written, not delegates whose votes are pledged to parties. Activists belong in Congress where the voters have some say.