ABSTRACT
A total of only 102 individuals have served to date on the Supreme Court of the United States, evincing an average longevity exceeded only by symphony orchestra conductors. The 102 successful lawyer-appointees have come from 10 major professional sub-groups, with 22 each from three of these, i.e., the lower federal judiciary, the state judiciary, and from diverse posts in the federal executive/administrative branch. If any concern about qualifications was subsequently expressed by delegates, it came all but inevitably in connection with the controversy over the role of the participatory political branch, ultimately the agreed-upon Senatorial one, about which James Madison, for one, notwithstanding his support of the legislative input, raised questions of “partiality”. Examples that point to personal and political friendship as the overriding causation for presidential choice are legion—although in most instances other considerations loomed as contributory, if perhaps either as buttressing or subsidiary reasons.
