Cite as: 520 U. S. 651 (1997)
Opinion of the Court
applied to the appointment of Court of Criminal Appeals judges only if those judges are "inferior Officers."
Our cases have not set forth an exclusive criterion for distinguishing between principal and inferior officers for Appointments Clause purposes. Among the offices that we have found to be inferior are that of a district court clerk, Ex parte Hennen, 13 Pet. 225, 258 (1839), an election supervisor, Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371, 397-398 (1880), a vice consul charged temporarily with the duties of the consul, United States v. Eaton, 169 U. S. 331, 343 (1898), and a "United States commissioner" in district court proceedings, Go-Bart Importing Co. v. United States, 282 U. S. 344, 352- 354 (1931). Most recently, in Morrison v. Olson, 487 U. S. 654 (1988), we held that the independent counsel created by provisions of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, 28 U. S. C. §§ 591-599, was an inferior officer. In reaching that conclusion, we relied on several factors: that the independent counsel was subject to removal by a higher officer (the Attorney General), that she performed only limited duties, that her jurisdiction was narrow, and that her tenure was limited. 487 U. S., at 671-672.
Petitioners are quite correct that the last two of these conclusions do not hold with regard to the office of military judge at issue here. It is not "limited in tenure," as that phrase was used in Morrison to describe "appoint[ment] essentially to accomplish a single task [at the end of which] the office is terminated." Id., at 672. Nor are military judges "limited in jurisdiction," as used in Morrison to refer to the fact that an independent counsel may investigate and prosecute only those individuals, and for only those crimes, that are within the scope of jurisdiction granted by the special three-judge appointing panel. See Weiss, 510 U. S., at 192 (Souter, J., concurring). However, Morrison did not purport to set forth a definitive test for whether an office is "inferior" under the Appointments Clause. To the contrary, it explicitly stated: "We need not attempt here to decide ex-
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