h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I did not state that I was providing statistics. You keep harping on about statistics. For the last time, I do noot need to provide statistics, even if such statistics exists (which does not, no matter how you twist it, negate to well-known fact that that, where judges are elected and appointed who do not have legal experience or background, gross errors are committed on a frequent basis AS I STATED).

If you want statistics find your own damn statistics.

I did not say my links "proved" anything about "Lance", I mentioned the Simpson case as an example of how a judge can allow things that patently should not be allowed and disallow things that should have been allowed.

I have provided evidence that you choose to ignore bacause you choose to keep going on about statistics. Statistics require someone to gather them. Just because no one has gathered statistics does not negate other evidence.

Post 82: "Actually, I gave a number of links with one particular example."

The link to which I was referring, which does not mention Ito, and I did not claim mentioned Ito but does refer to actually several examples but specifically to the judge elected while serving time for tax evasion. As the titles of the links I posted suggested, they were postings about the selection criteris for judges which supported the statement I made about there being a mish-mash of methods for electing judges, including some which require no legal background at all and others which have been reformed and DO require a legal background:
"Criteria for selection of judges:
Oklahoma: http://www.ajs.org/js/OK.htm
"Oklahoma judges were originally chosen in partisan elections. The impetus for change came in the mid-1960s, when one Oklahoma supreme court justice was convicted on bribery charges and another was impeached and removed from office. A third justice was already serving time in federal prison for income tax evasion. Described by one journalist as "one of the blackest marks ever on state government," these events led to two constitutional amendments aimed at insulating judicial selection from direct partisan politics. Elections for district court judges were changed from partisan to nonpartisan contests, and merit selection was adopted for appellate court judges and to fill interim vacancies on the district court."
The portion of my posting where I DID mention the Simpson case, in passing was: "Many American judges are woefully ignorant of the law.... Which is why they are constantly having mistrials... anyone who watched the Simpson case got a taste of how American judges can, if they are not law-knowledgable. In the UK I believe (I am not up on the precedure) judges are usually senior legal professionals drawn from the ranks of the bar. Same in Canada. In the US they can be anyone who runs for judge."

I conceded that Ito does have a background in law. This does not negate the fact that he allowed (and disallowed that which should have been allowed) evidence and testimony that legal experts (some of whom I work with closely) have stated should not have been allowed and, that under normal circumstances, and lawyer worth their salt would have contested.

"(which does not, no matter how you twist it, negate to well-known fact that that, where judges are elected and appointed who do not have legal experience or background, gross errors are committed on a frequent basis AS I STATED)"

Well, I think we've hit the nail on the head with this one. So your "well-known" facts don't require anything more than anecdotal backup. And "gross errors are committed on a frequent basis" - even though you don't have statistics to back those up.

All of you links provided anecdotal evidence, so I can understand now, why in your mind they constituted evidence/backup of your arguments.


This has been extremely illuminating; thank you Mudhooks.

*waves from the back of the class*

'Scuse me. 'Scuse me. I'm still not any clearer on the question I asked - namely "what are American judges *for*?"

Ben

I think someone said earlier that they're mainly around to insure a fair trial. I think that sums it up pretty easily. The jury ultimately decides the verdict of the trial.

So for example, the judge will decide whether certain pieces of evidence and testimony are admissable. There are also plenty of other rules regarding what can be said when. If the defense attorney thinks the prosecution has tried to introduce new evidence during the closing arguments, he would object, and the judge would then decide whether or not trial procedure had been breached.

You might want to try:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_trial

Well, that's what they do in the UK, and it was me who said it.

What I am trying to understand is what elected judges are for in the US. And also, whether the meme that American judges do not need to be legal professionals is true.

B

As far as I know, elected judges fill the same role as their un-elected colleagues. It's a mish-mash by state of what level judge runs for election, whether the election is by the general populace or by legislature, or if the judge is appointed by the governor.

The meme that judges do not have previous professional legal experience is generally untrue, from what I've encountered. Mudhooks would beg to differ. Neither of us has provided any evidence besides anecdotal to support our positions. Although, I do live in the US, while Mudhooks lives in Canada.

Here's a report from the US Dept. of Labor, Bureau of Statistics, on judges and magistrates:
http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos272.htm#training

There's a section on "Training, Other Qualifications, and Advancement" if you click/scroll down:

"A bachelor’s degree and work experience usually constitute the minimum requirements for a judgeship or magistrate position. A number of lawyers become judges, and most judges have first been lawyers. In fact, Federal and State judges usually are required to be lawyers. About 40 States allow non lawyers to hold limited-jurisdiction judgeships, but opportunities are better for those with law experience. Federal administrative law judges must be lawyers and pass a competitive examination administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. Some State administrative law judges and other hearing officials are not required to be lawyers."

So according to this, Mudhooks is mostly wrong about the requirement except for the lowest levels. I was right about most judges being lawyers prior to being judges.

Whatever, Arnie.... As I noted in the posting with the links to the selection process, the higher courts DO require a law degree but the lower courts and municipal courts do not, in many cases. This would include many of the local criminal courts. As I have repeatedly said, there are a mish-mash of methods and requirements for selecting judges in various jurisdictions from local to State to Federal.

In regards statistics: In searching for statistics, most sources have stated that statistics are very hard to obtain as many jurisdictions either do not keep statistical figures on the performance of judges:

"The American Judicature Society was not able to gather statistics from each of the commissions of the fifty states, because not all of the judicial commissions were willing to report it. However, the total number of complaints for all the states was estimated by the American Judicature Society to be in excess of 10,000. Statistically, only one out of a hundred complaints or 1% and probably less results in a determination. Based on this national statistics you can see, that the function of these judicial disciplinary commissions is not to discipline the judges but, to support judicial independence by not holding the judges liable for the misconduct alleged in the complaints."

....It should be noted that while the individual complaints are "confidential" the statistics on disposition of the complaints are not. Yet, the operation of these fifty commissions is so secretive that the great majority do not even have a website, and of the few that do, less than a half dozen report any statistics on their activities.

.....Even where the commission investigated the complaints against the judges most of them resulted in what is a “private disposition”. The commission noted 5 private admonishments and 19 private advisory letters. In a private disposition the names of the judges and parties and the case numbers are kept confidential. Only the nature of the improper behavior is disclosed in a most abbreviated form. Most of these private sanctions attempt to preserve the courtroom decorum. It is evident that it is not intended to punish the judge, but is mere a wrap on the finger, asking the judge politely to refrain from the objectionable activities. Private admonishments were meted out in the following instances:

The judge made comments that appeared to criticize the jury after its verdict; the judge made comments to the jury reflecting bias about the case; the judge abused his authority in an order involving payment of fees; the judge improperly threatened an attorney with contempt; the judge made remarks during court proceedings that disparaged the litigants and counsel; the judge demeaned a potential juror; the judge delayed in ruling on four matters and executed an inaccurate salary affidavit; the judge proceeded without appointed counsel despite the defendant’s statements that he wanted counsel and the judge made comments that disparaged the defendant’s version of the case and fostered the appearance that the judge was attempting to pressure the defendant into pleading guilty."

http://www.judicialaccountability.org/judicialaccountability3.htm

Ok. So broadly, it's similar to the UK where magistrates are trained lay people and judges are professional lawyers, except that in the UK they are both called "judges"?

Sounds good to me.

Regarding your source Mudhooks, I don't think they're biased at all:
"Please keep in mind that, evil prevails when the good people are silent and take no action."
No axe to grind there. Clearly, a dis-interested third party trying to establish the facts.

So... Now the information I provide is "biased" because it doesn't agree with your assertion that the judicial system in the US is perfect and free from judicial error. The section which I selected for posting was the most succinct statement of what is mirrorred over and over and over in any of the hundreds of sites, which range from partisan to those set up by State-appointed judicial reform panels and articles written by reknowned judges, themselves, that the electoral system, which is based not on merit but on influence and money, is decidedly flawed and favors not the most experienced and competent minds but anyone with the money or influence to run a good campaign.

What it states is this, that statistics are impossible to gather across the board because the system is designed to provide "freedom of the bench" which, by extension allows for abuses by certain members of the bench because of the state of secrecy. The latter point was, in fact noted one of the three links I provided to the study of Federal judicial reform, as well as a number of the other links which can be accessed by clicking "select andother State". This site is run by The American Judicature Society at Drake University, I suppose that they, too, are "biased"...

The Governing Board: http://www.ajs.org/ajs/ajs_meet-board_bios.htm#sandy

Here are specific cases listed on the above site: http://www.ajs.org/ethics/eth_articles-home.asp

Here is one note from their site:
Why is merit selection any better?
• Merit selection not only sifts out unqualified applicants, it searches out the most qualified.
• Judicial candidates are spared the potentially compromising process of party slating,
raising money, and campaigning.
• Professional qualifications are emphasized and political credentials are de-emphasized. Judges chosen through merit selection don’t find themselves trying cases brought by
attorneys who gave them campaign contributions.
• Highly qualified applicants will be more willing to be selected and to serve under merit selection because they will not have to compromise themselves to get elected.

How are merit selection judges held accountable?
After an initial term of office, judges are evaluated on the basis of their performance on the
bench by a retention commission or by the voters in an uncontested retention election. Judicial
performance is similarly re-evaluated for each subsequent term. This provides an opportunity to
remove from office those who do not fulfill their judicial responsibilities.

Where is merit selection operating now?
Two thirds of the states and the District of Columbia select some or all of their judges under the
merit system.

However, since you refuse to accept that the American legal system is flawed, and seem to know better than even some of the most experienced legal minds in the counrty, I will leave you to your ivory tower.

Oh, and before I sign off. I might point out that not all cases legal or civil are decided by jury. A defendant has the right to choose to be heard either by jury or by a judge.

tsk tsk. How many elephants died making your ivory tower Mudhooks? How many elephants were slaughtered senselessly?

"tsk, tsk"? A clever pun perhaps?

And with that I'm off.

"Ask" has improved dramatically in the months since "Misc Chat" and the "Games Room" were promoted by the staff as a method of separating out the wheat from the chaff. Therefore there is no need for me to hang around here listening to all of the intellectual bitch-slapping that goes on the the Forum these days; and I can join the end of the line of people who are out of this forum.

Bye-bye.

::POOF::

*Reappears on these pages for the first time in many a moon and in a cloud of smoke ::COUGH SPLUTTER:: to utter the words "Get thee behind me GreyDesk and join the lengthening queue" before vanishing up his own fundament*

::UNPOOF::

Ben - you have the function of Magistrates pretty much spot on. Of course the point is they are *supposed* to be ordinary members of the public, which is kind of important in the UK system of criminal law.

To help the system along a little, they get Clerks, who are fully legally trained and there to advise them on points of law, hence the reason they are also sometimes known as Advisors to the Court.

Right. You can go back to your utterly meaningless discussion about statistics now.

Hi Blues, welcome to the no evidence club. Here's your badge of merit.

Sorry? What do I have no evidence about? What Magistrates are in the UK and how they operate or that in the overall context of the discussion your debate about statistics is meaningless?

On the first point 16 years in the CJS of the UK leads me to believe I have ample evidence.

On the second, I merely observe the number of people who don't give a tinkers cuss, thereby rendering the discussion, ipso facto, meaningless.

"Right. You can go back to your utterly meaningless discussion about statistics now."

statistics = meaningless

In the context of the discussion, statistics would not have solved the dispute, nor provided *proof* that either you or Mudhooks was/is/will be at any future time correct. It is a discussion which is not capable of statistical proof. Frankly you might as well ask for statistical proof that God exists.

That is why this particular discussuion about staistics was meaningless, which is very different from saying all statistics are meaningless all the time, which is *exactly* what I didn't say or even imply.

Well, I would respectfully disagree with your idea about the applications of statistics. Further, I think your use of hyperbolic invective does nothing to advance the debate.