Yes, that's a legitimate theory. It's not one that has any kind of requirement to be based on supposition, however. I believe that pretty every other first world country has an appointed judiciary. In what ways are they more arbitrary and unfair to the public than the US judiciary is?
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I Was Alabama’s Top Judge. I’m Ashamed by What I Had to Do to Get There.
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Yes, that's a legitimate theory. It's not one that has any kind of requirement to be based on supposition, however. I believe that pretty every other first world country has an appointed judiciary. In what ways are they more arbitrary and unfair to the public than the US judiciary is?
SimpleDon
Veteran Member
Missouri had a quite good system for appointing judges. The American Bar Association would nominate three people for a judicial vacancy. The Governor would then pick the person to fill the vacancy from the three. Then then one year after the appointment and every four years the judge would face not an election but a plebiscite, voters were asked should this judge retain their seat? If the judge failed to get a majority of "yes" votes the judge was out and the process started over again with the ABA. The voters depended on the ABA's recommendation whether to retain a judge or not.
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SimpleDon
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There is here a widespread under appreciation for the role of professionalism in society. Lawyers and Judges are professionals. They answer to a higher calling than making a profit or politics. Becoming a judge is one of the examples of this. Most lawyers earn less money as a judge than they did as a lawyer. But like taking a certain number of pro bono cases, standing for a judgeship is considered to be an honor and an obligation, a way of paying back.
Why should we trust the people to elect people who will appoint the judges?
Why should we trust the people to vote for anyone?
Nice Squirrel
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Exactly.
Jimmy Higgins
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Voting for general offices is a lot easier than professional ones. Judges, engineers are specialized fields and how they work is based on the abilities and qualifications. A Mayor, a representative run a different show and the qualifications and the ability to see whether their goals mesh with the goals one sees in a representative or Mayor are alot easier to feel out.
I remember when the Republican County Engineer lost in '08 due to primarily the fucked up Presidency of George W. Bush. Yeah... he lost because of W. I actually voted for him because there was no reason not to. He was qualified and didn't do anything that indicated he should lose the job.
Find out about them? I don't have the time to do a full on peer reviewed process research job on each Judge on the ballot. Even if I did, I don't know whether I'd have the ability to determine whether they were best qualified over another. It is about as dumb as people voting for the County Engineer!
I remember when the Republican County Engineer lost in '08 due to primarily the fucked up Presidency of George W. Bush. Yeah... he lost because of W. I actually voted for him because there was no reason not to. He was qualified and didn't do anything that indicated he should lose the job.
Publicly electing judges is the worst way to fill the position. It would be better to randomly fill the position from a pool of candidates of lawyers who have been practicing law for X number of years, but I don’t really support that either.
I think the best way to fill positions for judges and prosecutors is for them to be elected by a special judicial board. This board would be made up of 15 people and they would nominate and elect candidates by a Condorcet method to a fixed term. They would also be able to remove a judge or prosecutor before their term is up with a 2/3's vote.
There many different ways to fill this board. The easiest way is to fill a single seat each year to a 15 year term by a random selection of a pool of lawyers who have been practicing for X number of years. This gives much better quality control over judges than just selecting them at random.
Another way to fill this board is much more expensive, but has much more perks. It would require a profession jury. To qualify to be a member of the professional jury, it would not require a law degree, but you would need special certification. In addition to determining the guilt of a defendant, the jury would grade the judges and prosecutors and take notes of perceived misconduct. The judicial board would use this information when electing and nominating candidates.
Every few years, veterans of this professional jury would be selected at random to attend a conference in which they discuss how they feel about their confidence in each individual member of the judicial board. They would have access to all the records of who nominated and voted for which prosecutors and judges. They would then be able to remove any member of the board by majority vote. Any new vacancies would be filled by random selection of veterans from the professional jury with the members of this conference being excluded from that selection pool.
I think the best way to fill positions for judges and prosecutors is for them to be elected by a special judicial board. This board would be made up of 15 people and they would nominate and elect candidates by a Condorcet method to a fixed term. They would also be able to remove a judge or prosecutor before their term is up with a 2/3's vote.
There many different ways to fill this board. The easiest way is to fill a single seat each year to a 15 year term by a random selection of a pool of lawyers who have been practicing for X number of years. This gives much better quality control over judges than just selecting them at random.
Another way to fill this board is much more expensive, but has much more perks. It would require a profession jury. To qualify to be a member of the professional jury, it would not require a law degree, but you would need special certification. In addition to determining the guilt of a defendant, the jury would grade the judges and prosecutors and take notes of perceived misconduct. The judicial board would use this information when electing and nominating candidates.
Every few years, veterans of this professional jury would be selected at random to attend a conference in which they discuss how they feel about their confidence in each individual member of the judicial board. They would have access to all the records of who nominated and voted for which prosecutors and judges. They would then be able to remove any member of the board by majority vote. Any new vacancies would be filled by random selection of veterans from the professional jury with the members of this conference being excluded from that selection pool.
The ads are for outcall dancers--a legal profession. While basically everyone knows what they really do that's not what the ads say. I'm not finding any closeups but here's a shot of a newsrack with many such ads: (While they always block out the naughty bits I would hardly call this SFW, hence the link instead of inlining it.)
http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/flyers-adult-services-las-vegas-29445930.jpg
Do you generally reject the basic premise of democracy, or is this a special case?
It seems to me the President has vastly more power than your average judge and anyone willing to run for it must be nigh to certifiably insane.
Because the President and other politicians are there to represent the people while the judge is there to perform a specialized service. It's the same reason that the generals hire aerospace engineers to build jets instead of giving billions of dollars to the most popular guy in a community and telling him to do it. Come to think of it, why is that man a general in the first place? I didn't vote for him.
A little bit of column A, but mostly column B. I don't expect the population to be too much informed on electing candidates for general representation, but I think they are much, much worse at electing candidates for specialized offices. With a general representative. at least most voters will know a little something they can evaluate a candidate on. Also, too many elected offices creates voter fatigue.
If we had a different voting system, I'd be much more optimistic about representative democracy in general. First-past-the-post voting necessitates strategic voting and makes it very hard to effectively organize.
If it were up to me, I'd vastly downgrade the powers of the President, expand the executive function of the Senate. and then remove most of their legislative powers. That is a separate discussion though.
Assuming this distinction were accurate, which I don't because the President has very specific and specialized tasks, why is this a meaningful distinction?
I think it would actually be far easier for a voter to decide what that voter thinks makes a good judge than a good president.
I assume you mean other than "Because the President and other politicians are there to represent the people". That's the main part of the job description of a politician in a democracy. A judge isn't there to represent the people anymore than a general in the army or a regulator at the SEC is. They are there to perform specific functions within the apparatus of government. Qualified professionals are hired to fill those jobs. Voting on who gets to be a judge makes as much sense as voting on who gets to be the captain of an aircraft carrier.
But the president is not there "to represent the people". He has a specific job to do. Just like a judge.
The fact it is a more complicated job would suggest it is harder for voters to tell who is best qualified to do it, not easier.
I would find it far easier to determine if someone is the best qualified to be an SEC commissioner than a President.
I really can't tell if you're being deliberately obtuse of just making a weird line of argument that I'm not following. I've been told to use smileys in similar situations where it's unclear what I'm saying and I'd encourage you to do the same.
In a democracy people choose who's in charge of the government and then those people appoint professionals to the specific jobs in that government.
In a democracy people choose who's in charge of the government and then those people appoint professionals to the specific jobs in that government.
Judges are worse because they have a duty that conflicts with popular opinion.
Do they?
Isn't the basic premise of democracy that voters know what they want and deserve to get it?
Perhaps the problem is that your vision of what a judge should be conflicts with what the voters want.
The problem is they have a duty to the constitution and the law, sometimes that conflicts with popular opinion.
This is true of all elected officials. Is it time to call off democracy?
Angra Mainyu
Veteran Member
I don't think that's a basic premise.dismal said:
Even if most voters know what they want (not all, but still), some of those voters deserve to get what they want, and some don't. Sometimes, even most voters don't deserve to get what they want.
But maybe I'm missing something about your definition of "democracy", or what you mean by "premise" in this context?