In principal I agree with the idea of appointing Supreme Court justices for life. Not having to repeatedly deal with running for re-election should allow justices to step back and examine laws on their merit and the constitution rather than political expediency.

The flip-side of allowing justices to serve for life needs to be complete transparency. While lifetime appointments have allowed many great justices to serve this country well, some of the appointments in the past few decades have been decidedly political (yes we're looking at you justices Scalia, Roberts, Thomas and Alito).

The only way to really judge the intellectual honesty of our justices is to be able see the papers they produce in the course of deliberations. While they will of course argue that they should be able to keep their deliberations private, this is a bogus argument. The court is there to serve the interests of the American people and protect our constitutional rights.

The Citizens United case was one of the greatest legal travesties of the last half century and while Chief Justice Roberts might not like it, we deserve to see what went on behind the scenes. The court only deserves the reverence it earns. They are not royalty. It's time for Justice Souter to publish his thoughts on the case and for other justices to come forward with the truth of what goes on. Perhaps in the harsh light of day, we will end up with a better court.

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Citizens United: Justice David Souter’s dissent in the Supreme Court’s momentous campaign finance case.
The New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin this week revealed  juicy bits from the Supreme Court’s deliberations as it considered Citizens United, the thunderous case in which the court allowed corporations and …

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