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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

#111

Post by candiodari »

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.

The whole thing there can be reduced to the observation: why does society let foster care and youth protective services exist?

You might say "well to protect kids". Except, there's a massive body of research proving that they make things worse, certainly on average:

https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/aer.97.5.1583

Massive negative effects, from reading scores, to later earnings, to subjective happiness (yes, really, kids report more happiness while being abused than in youth services), to later crimes.

So no youth protection is better for everyone. This is obvious in the case of scandals and the many "accidents". But it is true in general. And it is true for everyone. No child protection is better for the kid, for families (obviously I guess), and due to the increase in crime if we destroyed youth protection causes, it is better for society itself. If you start checking, you will find that youth protection is involved in the raising of many of the worst criminals we've ever known.

Even child psychiatry and "special needs schools" ... well. Comparing symptoms upon entry and symptoms upon exit paints a very clear picture that really questions why they're allowed to exist.

https://sci-hub.se/https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007...

And then of course there's the many scandals that these people keep and keep and keep producing. Abuse within foster families is higher than in families in youth protection services. In institutions it is a lot higher.

So they don't protect kids.

And crimes are astronomically higher in both foster care and institutional care (and youth psychiatry).

So they don't protect society against those kids either.

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

#112

Post by simonh »

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?

There’s no need to speculate, we know from the enquiry reported in the article he had no good reason to impose such a harsh penalty on this, or the other hundreds of people he did this sort of thing to in violation of judicial codes.

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

#113

Post by cptnapalm »

082349872349872 wrote: post #21
mdorazio wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worth noting is that the Boy Scout organization itself declared bankruptcy as a result of ongoing scandals and lawsuits.

If BSA is bankrupt, would it be an opportune time for the Girl Scouts of America to admit boys?

They recently stated that they have no intention of doing so.

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

#114

Post by dec0dedab0de »

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.

I believe Jail time should only apply to people who are actively a threat. I know it's not popular, but I am in favor of some form of corporal punishment over jail time, and even over fines. Fines are meaningless to the wealthy, and devastating to the poor, but getting flogged feels the same to everyone.

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

#115

Post by kube-system »

ksdale wrote: post #103
kube-system wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Towing, impound, booting of the vehicle? Revocation of license? Community service? Wage garnishment?

Thank you! I'm not sure taking away the use of the vehicle is much more humane than prison for someone too poor to pay traffic tickets. Without a vehicle in the US, they likely won't be able to get to work, which all but ensures they won't be able to pay their tickets. Same with revocation of the license, what if they drive anyway? What if they don't show up to community service? What if it's because they need to wor…

Impound shouldn’t be taken lightly as you point out, but it is the best solution for habitual noncompliance. There’s really no need to escalate to anything else unless you’re dealing with a billionaire with an unlimited number of cars.

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

#116

Post by chrisseaton »

Kednicma wrote: post #107
chrisseaton wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 .

The main boon is that a judge can be removed democratically. Obviously there are better ways to do that, like having a recall process or a vote of no confidence, but the USA's states were mostly created during a time when being able to vote judges out of office was politically trendy. Also, speaking as somebody who recently voted for local judges and prosecutors, I got to choose a prosecutor who won't take police-uni…

> I got to choose a prosecutor who won't take police-union money

You see this seems massively inappropriate in the first place. Take that money for what? A prosecutor shouldn't take any money from anyone, in any circumstance, apart from their salary. They shouldn't even be talking to a political organisation like a union.

Both things seem like grounds for automatic dismissal for a prosecutor. Why are you having to check for it as a voter?

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

#117

Post by logicchop »

jschwartzi wrote: post #84
logicchop wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

What does that have to do with your original assertion, that it's totally fine for a judge to sentence a woman to 496 days in jail for unpaid traffic tickets because she's suspected of being an unfit mother? What do those two things have to do with each other? And why would we accept a justice system where it's okay for judges to convict people of unrelated crimes? What about that is just?

"What does that have to do with your original assertion, that it's totally fine for a judge to sentence a woman to 496 days in jail for unpaid traffic tickets because she's suspected of being an unfit mother?"

This is an absolutely absurd "reading" of what I said, and it is patently offensive. Please look again.

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

#118

Post by godelski »

chrisseaton wrote: post #109
godelski wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which part is confusing? Can you answer this? "Are laws objective?" It seems you think so. But if they aren't, then someone needs to interpret them. This is essentially what lawyers are doing and the judge and jury decides what is right. > they don't try to appeal to anyone, they just implement it. Is this not how it works in the US? On paper, yes. In practice, no. Because again, laws aren't objective. > In the US co…

> But if they aren't, then someone needs to interpret them. If they're open to too much interpretation... send them back to the legislature to clarify. > Welcome to Jim Crow era. So the answer is clearly yes. Well this seems like an indication to me that the system is not great.

> If they're open to too much interpretation... send them back to the legislature to clarify.

Good idea. Now what do we do in the mean time with people that are being tried? Wait? How? Are they free or in jail? What's the default position?

Or do we just do our best (i.e. interpretation)?

> Well this seems like an indication to me that the system is not great.

Well... yeah... I don't think anyone has claimed it as such. If you have a better system I think a lot of people would be happy.

The issue is that there's lots of nuances involved. Even if we had Multivac judging it would still be difficult. People can't write code to be absolutely unambiguous and error proof. Code that takes into account every possible scenario. So I'm not sure why you would expect people that are in a more complex feature environment and using a less precise language would be able to perform better. This is really absurd, to me.

HUMANS ARE NOT PERFECT ROBOTS.

And I'm not sure why this is a controversial opinion.

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

#119

Post by boudewijnrempt »

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?

"there was certainly something going on that pushed the judge's buttons"

Well, duh. She is black. That pushed the judge's buttons.

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

#120

Post by chrisseaton »

godelski wrote: post #118
chrisseaton wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if they aren't, then someone needs to interpret them. If they're open to too much interpretation... send them back to the legislature to clarify. > Welcome to Jim Crow era. So the answer is clearly yes. Well this seems like an indication to me that the system is not great.

> If they're open to too much interpretation... send them back to the legislature to clarify. Good idea. Now what do we do in the mean time with people that are being tried? Wait? How? Are they free or in jail? What's the default position? Or do we just do our best (i.e. interpretation)? > Well this seems like an indication to me that the system is not great. Well... yeah... I don't think anyone has claimed it as suc…

> HUMANS ARE NOT PERFECT ROBOTS.

> And I'm not sure why this is a controversial opinion.

I think by asking them to stand for election you make them less perfect and amplify their flaws, because they have to appeal to some sector. Do they appeal to left-wing extremes, or right-wing extremes? They can't easily target both. They can't just do what they think is right. They have to pander to some niche.

Plainly applying the law doesn't win votes.

The only people who will votes are those who promise to twist it to some extreme.

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