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Alternatives to judge voting? | 168 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Alternatives to judge voting?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 10:49 AM EDT
A space alien.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Alternatives to judge voting?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 11:11 AM EDT
Read "Republic Lost" by Larry Lessig, and you will know why
judges should not be elected. Follow the money!

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Alternatives to judge voting?
Authored by: davecb on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 12:01 PM EDT
Surprisingly enough, appointment works well in many U.S. states and most other
English-speaking countries.

There is commonly a two-step process, with the local Bar creating a short-list
of people they have vetted, followed by a choice by an elected official,
typically the Minister of Justice.

In most of the countries where this works, the bar contains members of all
parties, and the politicians involved are defeated every so often, so the judges
are drawn from a broad range of political groupings.

Where it doesn't work, the law society and the government tend to be drawn from
a single party, or have been previously "packed", as a prerequisite to
packing the bench.

Jurisdictions where significant political decisions are made by courts are those
who are most likely to see packing efforts. Canada, who adopted a constitution
in living memory, is seeing more quasi-political decisions being made by courts
on constitutional grounds. Our political parties therefore under much more
pressure to pack the courts than they once were.

A highly unexpected result of converting from an unwritten to a written
constitution!

--dave

---
davecb@spamcop.net

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Federal Judges are not elected.
Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 01:40 PM EDT
They are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

I don't know how judges are selected in other countries, but why that comment
was included in this article is a mystery to me.

---
Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.

"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Alternatives to judge voting?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 02:16 PM EDT
One option is to appoint judges, with the following provisos:

1: The creation of betting pools, in which the winner is the individual who
correctly guesses the date of the death of a member of the armed force, law
enforcement, judge, or elected official, is legal;

2: The murder, killing, or assassination of members of the armed force, law
enforcement personnel, judges, and elected officials is neither a criminal
offense, nor a civil offense;

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Politics and court separate
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 03:06 PM EDT
Think politics should be kept out of court, and court business should be kept
out of politics. Including political discussions.
Over here we saw the increase of political attention of individual cases,
sometimes leading to decisions based on those cases in stead of on a global view
of the problem.
And more and more political decisions are directly reacting on individual cases
that hit the headlines.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Alternatives to judge voting?
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 03:34 PM EDT
I have a thought for an alternative to electing judges. I think it would also
help insulate the judicial branch more from politics that the current
appointment system at the federal level.

I would like to see what others here think of my idea.

This should be usable at both federal and state levels.

The executive appoints members of the supream court with legislative
confirmation as is now the case at the federal level but with the added limit
that the executive must choose a candidate from among the existing lower court
judges.

The supreme court then makes appointments to the lower courts, again with
legislative confirmation.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Alternatives to judge voting.
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 03:49 PM EDT
An interesting alternative can be found here: http://en.wikipedi a.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy#Courts. And here, in the Netherlands, a judge is appointed for life by royal decree, meaning that the cabinet (all ministers) chooses from a shortlist provided by the court boards and reviewed by the council for the judiciary. But maybe the biggest problem with selecting judges by politicians in the US is related to the way politics in the US are organised: a winner-takes-all system with only two parties, leading to polarisation and stifling compromise. It should be no surprise that the judicial branch eventually gets to absorb the political values and in effect gets to reflect society in general. That actually means that the selection system for judges is working as intended.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Missouri Plan
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 05:44 PM EDT
Link

Under the Plan, a non-partisan commission reviews candidates for a judicial vacancy. The commission then sends to the governor a list of candidates considered best qualified. The governor then has sixty days to select a candidate from the list. If the governor does not make a selection within sixty days, the commission makes the selection.

At the general election soonest after the completion of one year's service, the judge must stand in a "retention election". If a majority vote against retention, the judge is removed from office, and the process starts anew. If the majority vote in favor of retention, the judge serves out a full term.

It works well, but is under attack.

The key is that the voters can throw a judge out.

The difference is that with Federal Judges, the only way they can be removed is via impeachment.

---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

  • Missouri Plan - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, October 05 2012 @ 06:22 PM EDT
Alternatives to judge voting?
Authored by: albert on Saturday, October 06 2012 @ 12:38 PM EDT
Bringing in the voters politicizes any process. I like the idea of a
_non-partisan_ panel to select the field. That panel could review the judges
performance yearly, with the power to censure or remove a judge in extreme
cases. If the field of judges is already ranked, the next judge in line could
then then step in to fill the vacancy. That a governor needs to select a judge
is unnecessary. This would improve the judiciary.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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