Posted on 12/23/2009 5:45:14 PM PST by reaganaut1
A group of judges, political officials and lawyers, led by the retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, has begun a campaign to persuade states to choose judges on the basis of merit, rather than their ability to win an election.
As a state legislator in the 1970s, Justice O’Connor helped Arizona create a merit selection system for judges. She is now chairwoman of the O’Connor Judicial Selection Initiative, announced this month by the Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System at the University of Denver, to help make judges more than “politicians in robes,” as she has put it.
The group plans a new push to fight judicial corruption, and the perception of corruption that campaign money can cause, by encouraging state initiatives to scrap direct judicial elections. The work will include traveling from state to state, by invitation, to work with lawmakers, policy makers and advocates to build support for selection systems through public education, legislative counsel and political campaigns.
Rebecca Love Kourlis, the founder of the institute, acknowledged that getting voters to give up the right of direct election was “a hard sell,” but she argued, “You’re going to get a better caliber of judge over all.”
Merit systems — like the one that appointed Justice Kourlis to Colorado’s Supreme Court, where she served from 1995 to 2006 — generally involve a selection commission and regular “retention” elections in which voters can decide whether to keep their judges in power. Many states also have separate panels that report on judicial performance so that voters can go to the polls armed with information.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
By doing this then judges become unaccountable in their selection and retention.
True Left philosophy.
The judge being evaluated is forcibly submerged into a large tank or body of water.
If the judge is upstanding, he or she will remain submerged until drowned.
If the judge is corrupt, he or she will float to the surface to face execution.
I have a better idea:
Let’s make mandatory retirement at 70
Oh, and stop the stupidity of picking justices on the basis of race or gender . . . or both.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is the their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to
provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated
injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. (TARP, Stimulus, thuggery)
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. (who wrote the stimulus bill, what bipartisanship?)
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. (why does he leave the Whitehouse to go sign bills in other places & states...really...why does he do that?)
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. (on the otherside, when has he called together Republicans to meet with him? He doesn’t...it is always just the democrats)
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the
conditions of new appropriations of lands. (immigration reform or lack there of sufficient to support migrations?)
He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. (What did she just propose?)
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. (Czars)
He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislatures. (ah..yes, the new interpol EX.)
He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation. (Copenhagen anyone?)
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states: (how about things like tax evasion or the Congressional Hearing that are not a court of law for banks, carmakers, oil companies, insurance companies...)
For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing taxes on us without our consent: (real close on this one ain’t we all)
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury: For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses: (new interpol EX has this potential)
For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies:
For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments: (does this need explained)
For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. (oh yes, this started with the lights out act in the House during Aug. ‘08)
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty, and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. (immigration, interpol EX.O.)
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. (ACORN, SEIU)
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be ruler of a free people. (yeah...those full mailboxes, emails, and dropped faxes)
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too
have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must,therefore, acquiesce in the nesessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace
friends.
Anything o’connor is associated with should be viewed as a threat to the Republic.
Election of judges has done a far better job of getting rid of dead wood. The last thing we need is a whole new class of entitled, impossible to fire government employees...
hh
Another anecdote comes to mind: a couple of decades ago, the California supreme court overturned EVERY death penalty case that came before them. By rotating their votes, none of the justices had voted to overturn every case, but every case was overturned, nonetheless. After a war of words between the governor (Wilson or Deukmajian), voters through out 3 or 4 justices, including Chief Justice Rose Bird. Retaking control of the state supreme court was quite a nice feeling, although I have lost track of what has happened since. In general, I vote to replace any judge that comes up for re-election or re-confirmation....
hh
“...choose judges on the basis of merit, rather than their ability to win an election.”
LOL! What a friggin joke. Judges are usually lawyers who can’t make a living as lawyers so they become judges.
I was listening few years ago to the local NPR station here in SE PA and there was that very same discussion, only concerning PA elected judges specifically. The whole thing was and is still based on the fact that the judicial elections have become more and more like the general elections - with a lot of money at stake as everyone is trying to get “their” judge in so hopefully someday there will be a nice payback in form of favorable decisions etc. Also mentioned was the ever-increasing pressures to keep tabs on potential donors as the budgets for once-neglected elections have escalated with all the attention from the wrong kind of people this entails. The judicial reform sought by the proponents of the the abolition of all judicial elections seems to have merit to those too lazy to deal with the underlying problem - the financing of the campaigns. It also bring onboard a lot of people who honestly believe that choosing by merit means what it says. Their illusions/self-delusions aside, this argument may have certain validity in a society with no sizable internal conflicts and a mature political culture where an informal mutual understanding would readily identify/remove those willing to subvert that society’s ideals to their short-term political/commercial/whatever gains. We don’t live on that kind of society as shown by the ever-present underhanded tactics applied daily throughout the political spectrum - I think everyone here can come up with few examples on his/her own. The current election system can be quite bad but is at least obvious. Handing over the rains to a an exclusive club of people whose only achievement in life is jingling words would be a far worse as it will remove the public scrutiny from the process and it will confine any choices to a previously established litmus tests set by whoever rules the roost....and no one needs that kind of chickens around. If you ever happen to listen to that kind of discussion as I did for an hour eventually you’ll hear about the inability of the “Joe Shmoe” to make the right decision as to who is more qualified to be a judge etc. Sometimes there’s some truth to that - too many people couldn’t care less about local elections of any kind, and when they do they often vote en block. Removing that choice however without establishing a viable alternative runs counter to all America stands for. Letting the “professionals” run the show among themselves is a nonstarter. Allowing them to advertise minimum qualifications with detailed explanations for what they mean would be welcome as it will establish a base for skills comparison which is sorely needed. I get the sentiment about the local county judge who is one of us - and I generally agree with the premise. Sometimes however the county judge doesn’t know or care about basic constitutional rights and it takes higher court to reverse idiotic rulings on local level who never should have been made to begin with. That kind of screwups play in the hands of these same people and their useful idiots who’d rather have this election thing play internally for number of reasons, not all of them nefarious but ultimately leading to a society where the judiciary won’t be accountable to the populace and as far as any traces of accountability are still present they will be superficial to a point of being meaningless. One positive thing of such a development would be the gradual establishment of USA-wide judicial standards as far as academics/courtroom behavior are concerned. Any self-respecting gild does that and certain uniformity is helpful especially to folks who deal with the system occasionally. That very uniformity however can also be hijacked and used as a tool to change the course of the ship far more easily when compared with a fleet of smaller boats.Imperfect analogy indeed but this is what I can come with right now.
If Congress would do it's duty and remove Federal judges for judicial "bad behaviors", as the Constitution provides, that would be a Good Thing. But since they seem to have forgotten they have that power, maybe we should just go to the "continuence" election system, so we could do it for them.
If Congress would do it's duty and remove Federal judges for judicial "bad behaviors", as the Constitution provides, that would be a Good Thing. But since they seem to have forgotten they have that power, maybe we should just go to the "continuance" election system, so we could do it for them.
I'd make that an additional change, not just the only one. Make 'em stand for retention and retire them at 70. Give them incentives to retire a little earlier, starting at 60 perhaps.
Yeah, like looking down the barrel of a gun.
O’Connor is one of the reasons the “Reagan Revolution” was so temporary.
Wasn’t she originally a Goldwater Republican, and then Reagan renewed her lease? Howard Phillips and Jerry Falwell warned Reagan about her, but he wouldn’t listen. Apparently, one pushing hard for her was one Kenneth W. Starr.
Thanks loads, Sandy!
I have two words for this that every California Freeper will remember:
Rose Bird
a MoonBeam appointment.
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