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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

#91

Post by chrisseaton »

godelski wrote: post #90
chrisseaton wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why a judge would have a website. That's so crazy to me. They're not supposed to be appealing to anyone. They're supposed to interpret the law as it's written. They're technocrats. What would you like to see on a judge's website? Their opinions on things? They shouldn't have any personal opinions!

> They're not supposed to be appealing to anyone. Like... voters? > What would you like to see on a judge's website? Qualifications, what ideals are important to them, how they handled complex cases, etc > They shouldn't have any personal opinions! Unfortunately they are human, so they do have personal opinions. They are allowed to have personal opinions. They just aren't allowed to have party affiliations. But if yo…

This is bat-shit insane to me. The public elect the legislature who write the law... the judiciary implement it according to the legislation. They don't any personal opinions to it, that's not their job at all, they don't try to appeal to anyone, they just implement it. Is this not how it works in the US?

In the US could a town elect a judge who says they're going to convict everyone who's left-handed?

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

#92

Post by gruez »

rayiner wrote: post #71
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... .

Is there a reason why they can't be disbarred upon conviction, and then reinstated if the appeal goes through? After all, it's not like you can avoid prison time while your conviction goes through the appeal process.

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

#93

Post by godelski »

chrisseaton wrote: post #88
godelski wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What are people voting for them based on? Their qualifications, history, and biases. I mean it isn't like most judges are getting the position without having a law degree, so the majority of them are in fact qualified for the position. So how else do you fill a public position when you have multiple qualified people and a single position. The argument for election is so to reduce nepotism and cronyism.

> biases They should leave them at home if they're a freaking judge!!

> They should leave them at home if they're a freaking judge!!

You're telling me that Gorsuch doesn't have biases? RBG? Kavanaugh? Roberts? Sotomayor?

All these people interpret the same laws in different ways. If that isn't called bias than I don't know what is. The issue is that there is no objective truth, at least one which can be known. All laws are subject to interpretation. In fact, that is literally why we have judges and juries in the first place. To scrutinize and check interpretation of laws.

Are you telling me there's an objective truth to what "Freedom of Speech" means? What "the right to bare arms" is?

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

#94

Post by lmkg »

logicchop wrote: post #63
lmkg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the Rule of Law for a reason. If there's an issue with the system where guilty people are going free, then fix the system. Letting people take justice into their own hands is a cure worse than the problem, especially when those people are abusing the authority that was given to them to enact the justice that was created by a democratic process. A judge enacting a sentence based on inadmissible evidence is a v…

Again, wildly naive. There is no "rule of law" that is so prescriptive. We basically have a loose confederation of laws, interpreted by courts, and exacted by humans. There is flexibility in various aspects, including sentencing, and things like that are (when they are) left to the discretion of the judge precisely because there is no formula otherwise. There is nothing about this that violates anyone's oath or duty,…

I'm fine with a broad range of judicial discretion. Human judgement is a necessary part of the judicial system.

I am not fine with someone being sentenced and jailed for a crime they were not found guilty of, which is what you're describing. That's an abuse of power and a deprivation of due process.

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

#95

Post by gruez »

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.

And what if you're just poor and can't afford to pay because you live paycheck to paycheck? It essentially means being thrown in jail for being poor.

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

#96

Post by chrisseaton »

godelski wrote: post #93
chrisseaton wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> biases They should leave them at home if they're a freaking judge!!

> They should leave them at home if they're a freaking judge!! You're telling me that Gorsuch doesn't have biases? RBG? Kavanaugh? Roberts? Sotomayor? All these people interpret the same laws in different ways. If that isn't called bias than I don't know what is. The issue is that there is no objective truth, at least one which can be known. All laws are subject to interpretation. In fact, that is literally why we ha…

Do you realise that in most other countries judges don't expose any political bias? There are no right-wing judges or left-wing judges in the UK, they all just act fairly and interpret cases according to the law.

If there are major questions of interpretation they leave it to the legislature to clarify.

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

#97

Post by nitwit005 »

defen wrote: post #43
dependenttypes wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Judges can't just decide to have random people sterilized They can if someone petitions for it. > The mother petitioned the court to have her minor daughter sterilized And I can petition to have you sterilized. If the judge accepts it you will not be able to hold him responsible. He does not need to listen to you nor do you need to know about it. > The general rule is that judges can't be held personally liable for…

So in your opinion, if I petition a court for permission to kill my neighbor "because he's really annoying", and for some reason the judge says yes, he won't be held liable? Because I disagree. Judges do not have the ability to blanket "bless" actions so long as someone petitions for it. You have to look at the specifics of the case.

As long as it survives appeal, judges can basically rule whatever they want. Plenty of crazy rulings have gotten through the courts. Remember that time they ruled it was okay to toss all the Japanese people in internment camps?

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

#98

Post by FpUser »

logicchop wrote: post #74
thex10 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Nope. Just prohibit jailing people for being too poor to paying tickets and similar "crimes". This definitely does not require mandatory sentences which is an evil on its own.

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

#99

Post by rayiner »

gruez wrote: post #92
rayiner wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... .

Is there a reason why they can't be disbarred upon conviction, and then reinstated if the appeal goes through? After all, it's not like you can avoid prison time while your conviction goes through the appeal process.

The temporary suspension accomplishes the same purpose. Either way you can't practice law while you're appealing, which is the only punishment the bar can mete out.

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

#100

Post by Jach »

gruez wrote: post #95
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.

And what if you're just poor and can't afford to pay because you live paycheck to paycheck? It essentially means being thrown in jail for being poor.

What if you just refuse to pay because you hate what the government does with the money? It essentially means being thrown in jail for being stubborn.

I know this is HN, but do we really need to reinvent the concepts of punishment and deterrence from first principles? And I shouldn't even have to say it but of course the example instance at the root here is far beyond excessive.

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