You too seem to be using the case of the recall of Persky for his slap on the wrist of Brock “violent rapist” Turner as an appropriate platform to discuss why you do not think judges ought to be elected to or from office.
From the exceprt of the WaPo article quoted in Mark’s original post:
Persky said at the sentencing hearing that he considered the fact that Turner was drinking as a mitigating factor in his sentence.
@SheiffFatman was clearly referring to the rapist.
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No. You’re mistaken. I am not making any comment whatsoever on the merits of an elected judiciary.
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Then what does “A judge should never be just a vehicle for the mob’s whims.” mean? (I am assuming that “mob” refers to the millions of Californians who fired Persky’s vile ass yesterday, and not folks with sticks, guns and gasoline.)
I disagree. It was only going to be a problem if software had too few spaces for a date, and since it was known that it was going to be a problem, all software written after about 1990 had enough spaces. And almost every business was using software written after 1990. Yes, resources were thrown at it, but that was almost entirely unnecessary. I had a computer at the time, too. I had NO software written before 1990, and I threw NO resources at the “problem”. My computer didn’t crash.
But thousands of journalists who didn’t understand the issue were writing thousands of articles about it.
The statements I read in the voter’s guide against the recall said that the judge was following the Santa Clara County Probation Department’s recommendations.
So, it seems to me that the problem here is the probation department. Aren’t these the people who let Brock out after only serving half the recommended time?
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the point is not whether this particular defendant was deserving of mercy (spoiler alert–he wasn’t), the point is that this kind of thing tends to make judges start automatically picking the maximum sentences on pretty much every defendant who either pleas guilty or is found guilty. it depends on what kinds of errors you’re willing to tolerate in the system, errors of mercy or errors of punishment.
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Just because he’s an ‘asshole rapist’ doesn’t mean you have to be so mean to him.
That stuff hurts his feelings, you know?
/s
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The problem with merciful judges is that the positive emotional self-regard from being merciful accrues solely to the judge, while the risk of more crimes being committed by the now-convicted but soon-released defendant is born by the community at large. This tends to bias judges to err on the side of mercy rather than prudence.
Then replace them, too, until they get the message.
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Doesn’t this specific case, the one that we are commenting on, prove literally the opposite point? For a judge who wants to get elected, “Tough on crime” has been an extremely effective sales pitch
It’s how it’s done pretty much everywhere that isn’t the USA. And the people in those places point to the US judiciary as a demonstration of why electing judges is a bad idea.
Sure, appointing judges is a system that can go bad. Electing judges appears to be a system guaranteed to go bad.
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I know you’re joking, but here’s a dead serious reply anyway;
I don’t give a fuck about his feelings. I hope his bad karma is swift and cruel.
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But it was his first time! Don’t we all deserve a little bit of leniency as we navigate this wacky, topsy-turvy post-fact world? /s
“This is what we see, but that is not the “message” that politicians and judges will hear.”
If they can’t understand the electorate, they can’t do the job.
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I see the point that you are making, but I don’t reach the same conclusion from these facts as you do. I also don’t agree that we have a binary choice of result available to us, either too lenient or too harsh. This judge was recalled because he used a weak excuse to render an egregiously unfair sentence. He had the discretion within his power to choose from a full range of sentences, and yet he chose one which ignored the violence and harm caused by the defendant on an innocent person. He showed a huge amount of sympathy to the perpetrator, and largely ignored the devastating effect on the victim, both of the crime, and of the sentence.
The recall effort succeeded because many people agreed that the judge had made a bad decision, for reasons which made sense to him but not to the electorate. My preference would be for judges to be cognizant of all factors which contribute to the crime, and for them to have discretion to choose from a range of sentences based on those facts. We don’t want hanging judges, nor do we want a tap on the wrist by a good-ole-boy system.
It seems to me that the recall effort is one example in favor of the practice of electing judges. At least in this case there was a recourse to remove him. Had he been appointed there would have been no recourse.
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For comparison, how sensibly would you say American politics has reacted to the aftermath of the Willie Horton / Dukakis thing?
Because I’d describe it as thirty years of growing the prison state by leaps and bounds
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In Oz (where judges are appointed), the public outcry would most likely have resulted in a referral to the relevant Judicial Commission (which handles complaints of judicial corruption and malpractice), followed by an investigation and possible dismissal from the bench.
https://www.judcom.nsw.gov.au/complaints/frequently-asked-questions-by-complainants/
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Does that ever happen? Is it more or less likely that other judges would protect one of their own?
It’s complicated.
The judicial commissions can censure a judge, but not directly sack them; only Parliament can do that. And, yes, they’re all wealthy old lawyers, so they tend to stick together.
But once a bad judge becomes sufficiently egregious that he is an embarassment to the rest of them, then they will eventually act. Although they will tend to give the offender an opportunity to “retire” rather than being dismissed, so formal sackings of senior judges pretty much never happens.
For detail, see When can Magistrates and Judges be fired?
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