111–120 of 121 posts
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If Democracy is the illusion of rule by the people, what is actual rule of the people?
Anything that works at the scale of up a few hundred people, or low thousands at most.
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> Criminal law is literally a set of statutes. Simply untrue in common law countries (e.g. the US). Criminal law is absolutely driven by judicial opinions and statutory interpretation. > In most states, the formal rules of evidence don't apply. This isn't about evidence. It's about interpreting many doctrines that vary wildly between states. A single statute (re: defenses, attempt, conspiracy, the requisite mens rea…
You are clearly not a lawyer. Stay within your own lane. South Carolina magistrates handle minor criminal cases where the fine can't exceed $350 or 30 days in jail. Their jurisdiction in civil cases extends to matters involving less that $7500. As noted, if you disagree with the judgment, you get a brand new trial before the elected circuit court judge. There are no convoluted legal mysteries involving whether a tena…
It's against the site rules to be rude in comments here. Would you mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules? When someone else is wrong, it's a great help to provide correct information, but please don't break the guidelines while doing so.
Your comment would be just fine without those first two sentences.
Europe is the only sensible place left.
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The problem here is less the lack of experience but rather that many of these judges are routinely violating the law and the Constitution. We cannot have a functional legal system if judges do not follow the law.
Judges interpret the law. The law and Constitution are not written in C (and even if they were, we all know that every compiler has "undefined behavior" that may need to be adjudicated) and we occasionally need a court system to resolve disputes and clarify legal ambiguities. If the affected parties believe a judge made an incorrect decision, there exist procedures for appeal or even revisiting the question in a subs…
Responsibility is not a zero sum game. Voters and officials who elect and appoint judges are responsible for their actions just as much as judges are responsible for upholding and following the law. While many areas of the law are ambiguous and up to the discretion of the judge to decide, many other areas are well-established and clear cut (such as the illegality of jailing defendants who have not had access to a lawyer). The fact remains that we cannot exist as a society that depends on the rule of law to function if we have judges and other officers of the court who are unwilling or incapable of upholding the law as it exists.
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You are clearly not a lawyer. Stay within your own lane. South Carolina magistrates handle minor criminal cases where the fine can't exceed $350 or 30 days in jail. Their jurisdiction in civil cases extends to matters involving less that $7500. As noted, if you disagree with the judgment, you get a brand new trial before the elected circuit court judge. There are no convoluted legal mysteries involving whether a tena…
This is my lane.
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Because it is difficult to get people that are so well trained to work in that county, yet the work needs to be done. Many counties require that a coroner be a licensed MD with training/experience in the coroner's office. These costs necessitate a high salary to pay off such educational investments and also due to supply and demand. That particular county is very poor and there is little to attract such caliber of pe…
Same things can be said about practically any professional job. If the job is required, it should pay market salary, as it does in essentially every other profession. Why not elect system administrators? Everything you mention is true of them in many places as well.
[0] https://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/28/teen-suicide-contagious-...
This is probably why 2 separate judges upheld a cops decision to arrest me for using bad language while walking away from officer that had been harassing me as I was walking home from work. The law in SC is literally that bad language on the public road is a crime. They ignored 2 pages of precedents.
>The law in SC is literally that bad language on the public road is a crime. They ignored 2 pages of precedents. Not clear what you mean here. If the law is “literally” that bad language on the road is a crime, doesn’t that mean the 2 pages of precedents support it?
Swearing on the public street is disorderly conduct in the state of South Carolina. The 2 pages of precedent is that you can't criminalize the word fuck due to the first ammendment rendering South Carolinas law invalid.
Courts have repeatedly found that you can't criminalize speech save for very narrow bounds. Using a bad word while leaving isn't "fighting words" by the legal definition.
A variety of cases have gone as high as the Supreme Court for example City of Houston v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451 (1987)
> the ordinance is not narrowly tailored to prohibit only disorderly conduct or fighting words, but impermissibly provides police with unfettered discretion to arrest individuals for words or conduct that are simply annoying or offensive.
The constitution of the United States isn't a thing in SC unless you have money sufficient to appeal matters until you get out of the state.
Kind of like Texas prosecuting gay sex
Another case more recently
https://littlevillagemag.com/federal-appeals-court-rules-say...
However this has been a settled matter for decades which police keep ignoring.
Are there many places that have elected judges? Why not require law degrees? It’s not like “elected” must mean “can’t require qualifications”?
I actually think the most troubling aspect of elected judges is the amount of money they have to raise every few years just to keep their job. I suppose this isn't all that different from technical fields (PI's have to write grant proposals, entrepreneurs have to give pitches) so maybe its not that big of a deal.
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I actually think the most troubling aspect of elected judges is the amount of money they have to raise every few years just to keep their job. I suppose this isn't all that different from technical fields (PI's have to write grant proposals, entrepreneurs have to give pitches) so maybe its not that big of a deal.
How do they do that without accepting money from either local business or individuals (which would be problematic as soon as those individuals or businesses find themselves in court)?
EDIT: John Oliver did a bit on this a few years back. Access may be restricted outside USA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poL7l-Uk3I8
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Same things can be said about practically any professional job. If the job is required, it should pay market salary, as it does in essentially every other profession. Why not elect system administrators? Everything you mention is true of them in many places as well.
I mean, I'm not arguing for this method, it is obviously crazy and has contributed to a lot of issues in other parts of the country [0]. I'm just giving the rationale I have heard from others. [0] https://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/28/teen-suicide-contagious-...