Thousands of U.S. judges who broke laws, oaths remained on the bench • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by logicchop » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 9:55 PM UTC

lmkg wrote: post #94

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,…

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.

I am not replying to disagree with the spirit of your comment. I just think you should be a bit more careful thinking about it. Obviously she was not jailed for a crime she didn't commit and wasn't convicted of; she was jailed for a crime she did commit and was convicted of. The question is psychological though, about whether the sentencing decision, within the in murky realm of discretion, was based purely on facts completely bound by the scope of the conviction, or whether it extended beyond the scope of the conviction. And the answer is, it always extends beyond the scope of the conviction.

I ask you again to just use your imagination; set aside this particular case and imagine a case where there is absolutely compelling grounds for thinking that the mother is a direct harm to her children, but no admissible evidence to establish that in a legal context. So given the legal "room" to hand down a harsher-than-would-otherwise-be sentence for some separate offense, that doesn't strike me as totally inappropriate or out of line with our expectations about what judges should do. This of course requires the legal establishment of the "room" for judges to do such things, but they have that to a large extent.

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

#122

Post by logicchop » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

FpUser wrote: post #98

logicchop wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your "Just prohibit.. " line sounds like a mandatory sentence to me; just in this case a mandatory sentence of "none." What would be left to the judge's discretion exactly?

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

#123

Post by boudewijnrempt » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:03 PM UTC

nitwit005 wrote: post #97

defen wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That wasn't so crazy back in the time; it had many time-honoured precedents, ranging from the Boer war internment camps to the SWA internment camps, to the ones in WWI in occupied France and Belgium, and, of course, the make-belief internment camps for Armenians in Turkey; a really good book that explains how the idea that interning a whole ethnicity was a good idea sprang up is "Absolute Destruction" by Isabell V. Hull.

(Note: the US and what it did and does, does not exist in isolation; these outside-US developments are germane. Also, it was evil and cruel and contra-productive, but that wasn't a problem, because since it was what you would do, in case of war, it had to be done.)

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

#124

Post by openasocket » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

Some commenters are asking about what we can do to fix this, so I thought I'd list some potential action items off the top of my head:

- Getting rid of elected judges will certainly help, though it looks like Hayes wasn't elected but appointed by the city council. I'm not totally clear on how local judge appointments work, but it might make sense to consolidate this power at the state legislature, which will have more visibility and accountability than the city council. In general, I think a lot of our issues with civil rights and justice reform could be helped by consolidating more power at the state level rather than the city/county level, and creating a clear hierarchy of power between the statewide and local entities.

- People talk about having term limits for judges, but I'm not totally sure I agree with that. It's something to consider though, and worthy of study.

- Improve funding for public defenders. It might make sense to require municipalities to match their budget for prosecutors with their budget for public defenders, or some fixed percentages. Elevating the office of public defenders and making it a viable career path, much like being a career prosecutor, would go a long way.

- Look into expanding when you can rely on the services of a public defender, like in traffic court for more minor offences. For some people a hefty fine can make them destitute, and they need someone to advocate for them and make sure the fines assessed are fair.

- Strengthen national organizations for public defenders, like the NAPD, through grant programs.

- Increase liabilities for judges in the event of gross misconduct. This should include not just suspensions but monetary fines (which I know can be levied for lawyers engaging in misconduct). This can be done not just with legislation, but possibly legal action. And there might be grounds for civil rights lawsuits against municipalities and states that fail to properly vet and discipline judges conducting this sort of gross misconduct. Generally speaking judges are not personally liable for any actions they take on the bench, but the bodies that are supposed to oversee them could be.

- The Justice Department should perform more investigations of these sorts of systemic civil rights violations, much like they did in Ferguson and Baltimore. It should be expanded to the point where they aren't just conducting these reviews after some bad behavior gets headlines, they should be conducting random audits to improve accountability. This can be backed up with legislation requiring the Justice Department to conduct regular reviews, to ensure this is happening consistently and doesn't vary from administration to administration.

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

#125

Post by analyte123 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:07 PM UTC

basementcat wrote: post #82

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 reality is there is quite a bit of wiggle room in the interpretation of the law. Someone who is conservative and 'tough on crime' may want a judge who is biased toward stricter prison sentences. Someone who is more liberal may want a judge who shows more leniency and is biased toward finding other ways to rehabilitate the guilty. Its kind of like how two competent people can implement a POSIX compliant operating…

Systemd does not aim for POSIX compliance: https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/6259#issuecomment-...

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

#126

Post by throwaway0a5e » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:09 PM UTC

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??

>how does it do any good to put her behind bars at all

The good it does is deterrence to the rest of the population. Or that's how authoritarians like to see these sorts of dis-proportionate punishments.

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

#127

Post by remmargorp64 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

candiodari wrote: post #111

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.

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 rep…

So where is a child supposed to go when their parents have died or been imprisoned? Should they just be homeless? What alternative do you envision?

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

#128

Post by cool_dude85 » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

Shivetya wrote: post #110

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

What is truly criminal is many judges retire with seventy five percent to up to one hundred percent of their salary plus benefits. I really wish people here would understand the real fleecing of America isn't by the CEOs of the country, they cannot make you pay their retirement but public servants can and those at the upper levels easily pull down one hundred thousand or more per year when retired!

Pensions aren't truly criminal.

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

#129

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:17 PM UTC

Invictus0 wrote: post #102

alexashka wrote: post #70

This article is depressing. What I find troubling is not only what's in the article, but what's left out. There is no call to action, there is no information provided as to what a reader can do, to help fix this disaster. It leaves you feeling deflated, because now what? Now you go about the rest of your day with this burden of knowledge. This is very common with these types of stories - it's not enough to complain,…

Reuters is just a newswire agency: it just does research and provides the facts. Downstream news outlets like Fox and NBC are the ones that will put the spin on it, and boutique outfits like commondreams and Mother Jones will give you the call to action if they cover it. The problem with Mother Jones and publications like it is that they have a pretty strong slant (they are trying to persuade you, not inform you) and…

[deleted]

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

#130

Post by meddlepal » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 10:18 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #91

godelski wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Do you come from a country with common law or civil law? Common law is all about opinions and consideration of precedent. It grants a wide range of flexibility to judges.

Civil law is a lot less flexible. Most of the world uses civil law. Common law is I think exclusive to the former British colonies.