[Young Scholar]

Now if we had a European system where the judges actually had to know something (terrorism courts, patent courts, etc.) he might have a point, but given that the only requirement is to be literate and be able to tie your own shoes, I don't see why they should be paid more than minimum wage, let alone the six figures they are paid.

The job of a common-law judge (which is roughly what we have) is far more difficult than that of a civil-law judge, since far more is left to judgment and the application of ambiguous precedent.

[AmishDude]

I disagree. The whole point is to get rid of ambiguous precedent. Stare decisis, as we all know, is a Latin phrase meaning "perpetuating stupidity."

It seems the biggest problem is when people aren't bound by precedent. When do you overturn precedent? Plessy? Brown? Kelo?

It seems that many judges are not bound by precedent and many others simply pick the precedent that benefits them.

But please tell me what great intellectual powers it takes to memorize a bunch of court cases.