I don't care what happened with a supreme court seat 200 years ago, Galt. I just don't.
If we establish known tenures for justices, how do we prevent it being gamed? Hell, we're apparently making excuses for leaving a seat vacant for a year...even when its a total wild card. If we make them impeachable, how can they do their jobs?
We need to streamline the process, and force the government to actually do it's job. There needs to be some sort of timeframe, and failing that, a default.
On this topic...there are currently something like 100 unfilled federal judge seats. And no apparent impetus to fill them.