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Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

reuters.com

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Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#51

Post by chrisseaton »

pmoriarty wrote: post #18
meddlepal wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of stupidity you get with elected judges.

The problem isn't that judges are elected, but that it's nearly impossible for voters to make an informed decision. In the last election, I tried to find out about the local judges on my ballot and could find virtually nothing. The media has been neutered in to an infotainment machine, so there's very little investigative journalism left even on issues of national or international importance, much less on small issue…

> The problem isn't that judges are elected

I'm pretty sure it is... why would you elect a judge? They're not supposed to apply any opinion just interpret the law technically. What are people voting for them based on? Their political affiliation? That's absolutely bonkers.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#52

Post by infamouscow »

augustt wrote: post #4
jimbob45 wrote: post #2

> Instead, the judicial commission and Hayes reached a deal. The former Eagle Scout would serve an 11-month unpaid suspension. Do these articles not get reviewed before publication? How is being an Eagle Scout relevant to this story?

Why not? It's an interesting point that he was a Boy Scout, an organization whose statement is "to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes", and he went on to be a terrible human being.

Because news stories and editorials are separate sections of news media.

Including that bit of information is not relevant to the facts. You can take any news story and cherry-pick unrelated details to paint things in a certain light.

This is a contrived example, but lets say there's a news report about MIT investing in some new technology and a journalist doesn't like MIT. The headline could read "MIT invests in questionable technology" and begin with "MIT, which has come under fire for having received $750,000 from Epstein is investing $750,000 in foobars".

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#53

Post by logicchop »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #30
logicchop wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to defend the judge in that case in any way, but there is a question about whether/when it is OK or even desirable for judges to intervene "indirectly" with their power. For example (just an example, not suggesting this is how it was), suppose in the case you mention that the mother was suspected of being abusive or negligent, but that a prosecutable case couldn't be made for that, and that the traffic tickets we…

> but that a prosecutable case couldn't be made for that So we suddenly have proven guilty without proof, but rather just because there's some suspicion. Doesn't seem American.

That's wildly naive and I think with a little bit of imagination you too can envision a scenario where it makes sense. It needn't be "wild guessing" on the judges behalf; there could be even absolutely convictable evidence that would cause any reasonable person to immediately and unquestionably believe in the guilt of the mother, yet might be barred because of a rule governing the admissibility of evidence (that's its own ugly topic). In such a case I find it hard to believe that a judge taking it on himself to "do the right thing" would be seen as "un-American"

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#54

Post by SkyBelow »

Reedx wrote: post #19
chidog12 wrote: post #3

> Judge Les Hayes once sentenced a single mother to 496 days behind bars for failing to pay traffic tickets. The sentence was so stiff it exceeded the jail time Alabama allows for negligent homicide. > Johnson’s three children were cast into foster care while she was incarcerated. One daughter was molested, state records show. Another was physically abused. Speechless... Makes my blood boil

Seriously, even if she failed to pay 10,000 traffic tickets, how does it do any good to put her behind bars at all? They really couldn't think of a better way to deal with non-violent offense??

Eventually jail time would be needed as an alternative if other option are purposefully ignored or other court orders not followed, but there are quite a lot of steps before you get into over a year sentence, and even then by that point it would be for contempt of court and no longer about the individual tickets.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#55

Post by zajio1am »

chidog12 wrote: post #3

> Judge Les Hayes once sentenced a single mother to 496 days behind bars for failing to pay traffic tickets. The sentence was so stiff it exceeded the jail time Alabama allows for negligent homicide. > Johnson’s three children were cast into foster care while she was incarcerated. One daughter was molested, state records show. Another was physically abused. Speechless... Makes my blood boil

> Johnson’s three children were cast into foster care while she was incarcerated. One daughter was molested, state records show. Another was physically abused.

This looks more like indictment of US foster care.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#56

Post by mjw1007 »

justaguyhere wrote: post #42
mcv wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both political appointments and elections are a bad idea. Both make the appointment of judges a political decision.

Is there a third option though?

This is what's used in the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judicial_Appointments_Commissi...

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#57

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

ipython wrote: post #15
chidog12 wrote: post #3

> Judge Les Hayes once sentenced a single mother to 496 days behind bars for failing to pay traffic tickets. The sentence was so stiff it exceeded the jail time Alabama allows for negligent homicide. > Johnson’s three children were cast into foster care while she was incarcerated. One daughter was molested, state records show. Another was physically abused. Speechless... Makes my blood boil

Don’t forget the 2008 kids for cash scandal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal . At least those judges were eventually tried and are serving time.

Convicted in 2011, disbarred in 2019. The guild will go to great lengths to protect their most guilty.

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#58

Post by [deleted] »

thex10 wrote: post #44
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps contempt. Perhaps a disregard for public safety. Who knows? It of course was outrageous, but there was certainly something going on that pushed the judge's buttons. Because, every traffic violator didn't get that sentence, right?

> but there was certainly something going on that pushed the judge's buttons Yeah, but who's to say whether that something was remotely reasonable versus something completely frivolous (she rolled her eyes at him, she didn't cry convincingly enough, some other bullshit). Anyway I'd argue that our justice system should have zero room for such capricious, emotional judging.

[deleted]

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#59

Post by SkyBelow »

defen wrote: post #20
dependenttypes wrote: post #6

Not sure if this is relevant to this but I would like to remind you that a US judge can order to you be sterilized without your knowledge and you can do nothing about it nor can anything be done to the judge. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stump_v._Sparkman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_v._Bell

That's a sensationalized way of describing it. Judges can't just decide to have random people sterilized. The mother petitioned the court to have her minor daughter sterilized. The judge made a large number of procedural mistakes in granting the petition, but the Supreme Court ruled that he didn't act outside of his judicial capacity. The general rule is that judges can't be held personally liable for mistakes they m…

>Judges can't just decide to have random people sterilized.

More specifically, they can't unless they do, but if they do then that's okay. Which seems to simplify to "they can".

Re: Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench

#60

Post by SkyBelow »

trentnix wrote: post #50

There are two justice systems: One for the politically connected. One for everyone else. Who watches the Watchmen?

It is a bit more complicated than that. There is a tiered system based on your connections, class (wealth), gender, race, appearance, and other factors (these factors are not weighted equally). To further complicate it these factors are weighted differently for different categories of crimes.
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