>>32
I understand. To be fair, they can be impeached under terms of Article II Section 4 but the list of reasons is "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" and it is the Senate that retains the right to try the defendant for all position where impeachment is possible (Article I Section 3). It's possible a referendum vote by the State where they are seated could put the matter of impeachment on the table of the Senate but that drops the ball into the hands of the Senate. And what crimes?
I was going to write "Impeachment of a Federal State judge has never been tried" but I then realized I really don't know that for certain and held my tongue. Then I found this -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States#Impeachment_in_the_states - and this -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_investigations_of_United_States_federal_judges. I haven't run them all through due to personal time, but there appears to be an impeachment precedence (as well as some "resigned/died first" cases). The case of Samuel Chase in the Jefferson Administration has a note that perhaps you may find interesting:
[T]he acquittal set an unofficial precedent that judges would not be impeached based on their performance on the bench. All judges impeached since Chase have been accused of outright criminality.
Neither here nor there.
Contradictory sets of laws still need to be sorted out in some way, shape, or form. You can't have one law say all people are guaranteed due process and another that states no people in this range are required to have their due process respected. As the Constitution is the ceiling and floor for the Republic's laws, whether or not you think it should be, where should local laws merits over national principle merits be debated?
The President? obligated to uphold the Constitution but elected by majority vote (even with the electoral college) to support the majority's opinion.
The House? obligated to uphold the Constitution but elected by majority vote to support the majority's opinion.
The Senate? obligated to uphold the Constitution but elected by majority vote to support the majority's opinion.
The judiciary is the only place where the majority's opinion is marginalized and the matters of law and legal precedence alone are (supposed to be) more important. If you wish to make a point of lowering their term limit I would have no qualm, but that would increase the influence of public opinion on judicial turnover. I likewise have no qualm against majority opinion but when should it not, itself, be stopped from becoming the dictator?