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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

#71

Post by rayiner »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #57
ipython wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It takes years for a conviction to become finalized. He was temporarily suspended in April 2012, while he appealed his conviction. The Third Circuit denied his habeas petition on March 2019. He was disbarred in October 2019. http://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/DisciplinaryBoard/out....

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

#72

Post by chadlavi »

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

the carceral mindset in our society is the root of a lot of really stupid, kafkaesque evil done in the name of the public but benefiting no one (except for-profit prisons!).

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

#73

Post by jessaustin »

mjw1007 wrote: post #56
justaguyhere wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a third option though?

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

That seems like a nation-level body? It seems unlikely we'd ever have something like that hiring judges for city-level posts in USA. Also JAC seems to recommend candidates after which action another (seemingly politically-appointed) entity decides whether they'll go on the ballot? I might be misreading?

I certainly hope we can improve our "judicial" system in USA, to make it more just, less tyrannical, less capricious, less totalitarian, less active, etc. Sometimes I wonder whether that's possible for a society that's happy to spend $750B/yr on killing machines and in fact has killed millions of innocents overseas over the last several decades. As Thucydides wrote, the tyranny that the Athenian empire imposed on others it eventually imposed on itself.

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

#74

Post by logicchop »

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.

That's a defensible position, but you then have to accept something like mandatory sentences, which introduce their own set of issues.

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

#75

Post by [deleted] »

justaguyhere wrote: post #41
pmoriarty wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 This is definitely one of the problems. There was a study that showed judges were handing stricter sentences for the same crime during election years than non election years ("tough on crime"). Elections are a popularity contest in a way, even well informed voters do not always make rational decisions. If one doesn't have elections to worry about, he/she can do their job to t…

[deleted]

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

#76

Post by elbigbad »

SkyBelow wrote: post #54
Reedx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No. Assuming we're talking pretty usual traffic tickets and not talking about driving in a grossly negligent way, no one should _ever_ go to jail for traffic tickets. Largely this logic should apply to any malum prohibitum crime. There are plenty of other ways to enforce these fines/tickets.

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

#77

Post by basementcat »

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…

Check the endorsements from local bar associations. Read the endorsements from various news outlets. They may not agree but may provide some background information to help with your choice. You can also (most time consuming) pull court records.

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

#78

Post by Kinrany »

js2 wrote: post #22
orf wrote: post #17

> In Texas, a judge burst in on jurors deliberating the case of a woman charged with sex trafficking and declared that God told him the defendant was innocent. The offending judge received a warning and returned to the bench. The defendant was convicted after a new judge took over the case. > In Indiana, three judges attending a conference last spring got drunk and sparked a 3 a.m. brawl outside a White Castle fast-f…

Here's the Indiana one if you want some more color: > Back in May, three Indiana judges got into a fight. It was the crescendo of an incident brimming with colorful details: a gaggle of judges drinking the night before a judicial conference, a failed attempt to visit a strip club called the Red Garter, a brawl in the parking lot of an Indianapolis White Castle. > The altercation apparently started sometime after 3 a.…

This actually sounds... better? The initial line read like the judges shot each other.

Did they even break any laws?

Getting too drunk to visit a strip club and raising a middle finger to someone is not what I expected to be among the worst examples.

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

#79

Post by jschwartzi »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #36
CyberDildonics wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what you are saying. Are there more details that know about this specific case that explain the sentence?

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?

I'm going to speculate, in the same vein as you, that she was an otherwise law-abiding citizen who was nothing but polite and kind, and that the judge saw an opportunity to make an example of her. Judges have the power to hold people in contempt and jail them, so why did he not do that if she was a bad citizen, as you assert? He chose to jail her over a year and a half for unpaid parking tickets. Why? I think he didn't like something about her, and I don't think it was her demeanor.

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

#80

Post by ksdale »

elbigbad wrote: post #76
SkyBelow wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No. Assuming we're talking pretty usual traffic tickets and not talking about driving in a grossly negligent way, no one should _ever_ go to jail for traffic tickets. Largely this logic should apply to any malum prohibitum crime. There are plenty of other ways to enforce these fines/tickets.

Asking non-rhetorically and in good faith, what are the plenty of other ways to enforce fines?
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