What I’m trying to do is to make those whose instincts may favor important structural change or other similar institutional changes such as forms of court-packing to think long and hard before they embody those changes in law.

Stephen Breyer

If the public sees judges as politicians in robes, its confidence in the courts and in the rule of law can only diminish, diminishing the court's power, including its power to act as a check on other branches, that authority, like the rule of law, depends on trust... that the court is guided by legal principle, not politics.

Structural alteration motivated by the perception of political influence can only feed that latter perception, further eroding that trust.

The problem with trying to separate misdemeanor and felony is that different states have different rules and different crimes that count as misdemeanors.