Who Judges the Judges?
popehat.substack.com
popehat.substack.com
This way the public gets a voice in judicial matters, but without the problems you see in states with directly elected judges.
Nobody thinks judges should police themselves. The question is how to do the policing in a way that respects separation of powers. Federal judges are subject to impeachment. They can be prosecuted in the same way as any other public official. Assigning the power to ethics committees staffed by unelected bureaucrats creates a whole host of separation of powers problems.
And it’s very sad to seen Ken’s deterioration into a Huff Po or Salon writer. The profanity here is gratuitous and unnecessary.
You seriously read that entire story and think that the profanity there is gratuitous and unnecessary?
Maybe you missed it, but the claim is directly quoted in the original post[1]. 4 in 5 judges believe that the judiciary should police itself which, by any measure, is not “nobody.”
[1]: https://www.judges.org/news-and-info/judges-prefer-the-judic...
If by “policing” mean supervising judges the way an employer might supervise an employee—then obviously the judiciary needs to do that itself. Enabling other branches to investigate non-criminal, non-impeachable behavior would be an egregious violation of the separation of powers. The judiciary is a co-equal branch of government. They’re not a department of America Inc. where the President. To use Ken’s example of a judge being an alcoholic, thats obviously not the business of anyone but the judiciary, and Congress if they choose to impeach. It’s the same as a Congressman being an alcoholic.
This is an unusually straight-laced post for him; the profanity is obviously restrained for effect.
He's great, and hasn't really changed a whit (though the world around him has).
I was hoping he would do an analysis of 1/6. At what point did Trumps speech violate the law?
Sadly it does seem he’s become a Vox/Salon writer.
He's not remotely like a Vox/Salon writer.
It is the media. Judiciary is obsessed with appearences. That is all they care about. A decision that looks unjust can have people revolting, and that is the failure of the institution. So they follow media like crazy celebrities.
And so you have plant articles in media that these judges read. It takes time and effort but that is how you bring change.
Law is a weird and fickle business. It's way behind the rest of professions as far as technology goes, and is still mired in tradition, for better or worse.
Judges are very biased no matter how neutral they seem. I have not been able to accurately predict whether I will win a motion. I can think I've got the law and facts on my side, only to lose to a whiny opponent. I don't whine to judges and I've watched many lawyers do that. In my experience blow hard whiny lawyers seem to get their way. I just can't be like that though.
The public has a poor understanding of the inner workings of law practice and the courts. Some of that is from TV and dumb books, but a lot of that is due to the "black box" aspect of the courts. Everything is sort of done in secret and without transparency. I had hoped to change that with my idea but it didn't work.
Marketing and finding PMF seem like the hardest parts for me.
At least when the senior software engineer becomes progressively less competent, they tend to fail faster. The code doesn't compile, the builds fail, the tickets start accumulating. When it happens to a judge, the significant feedback can take years to return from the appeals courts. And even then it isn't disqualifying.
But there is no compiler for legal decisions, and no instant specifications to fail, and if trouble tickets start piling up, nobody has to notice them. Imagine what would happen to the quality of your code under those circumstances.
My sense is that drug / alcohol issues get handled fairly efficiently now. The biggest problem is just the effect becoming a demigod for life has on the ego.
privilege and power are their own types of traps
when you can’t appear to fail, how can you ever get help?
self identify is a tough bugger even more so when some success is achieved
The issue, as the article points out, is that wearing a robe and/or wig does not suddenly make people free from faults. The only solution is systems that avoid centralising power on one person as best they can, and clear guidelines on how that person should act when it is unavoidable.
Which is basically how the thing works.
I want to be clear, I'm not saying there wouldn't be pitfalls but having so many of our institutions be completely dependent on humans acting in the best interests of the many and doing the right thing feels very much like a failed experiment.