“The point of life tenure is to keep justices insulated from politics,” said George Washington University law professor Orin Kerr. “That didn’t quite pan out.”

For years now, lawyers have been floating proposals that future high-court justices spend no more than 18 years at a time on the Supreme Court bench. The plan would space out appointments, so presidents would make appointments every two years, supporters said. That would bring regular turnover and fresh thinking to the court — and align with the longer life spans of Americans since the nation’s founding, they argue.

“It just sounds undemocratic,” said Gabe Roth, executive director of an advocacy group called Fix the Court, about the lifetime court appointments. “There’s definitely concern about the justices being out of touch. There have been a number of cases with modern technology, whether it be smartphones or bulk data collection or different types of ways of getting TV over the airwaves or over the Internet.”…

“My current cautious endorsement of this is based on the perception that the whole issue of appointments to the Supreme Court has become incredibly contentious, partisan, political, almost to the point where the political system freezes up, as we’re witnessing right now with the Scalia death,” Merrill said. “It would be a good thing not to have the type of Armageddon it looks like we’re about to have.”