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FieldMarshalFry Field Marshal of Cracked from World Internet War 1 Since: Oct, 2015 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Field Marshal of Cracked
#120151: Apr 26th 2016 at 11:37:59 AM

advancing the front into TV Tropes
Matues Since: Sep, 2011
#120152: Apr 26th 2016 at 11:43:02 AM

On the note of poor people going to jail, Cruz's plan for fixing the government includes abolishing the Legal Services Coorperation.

So if you can't afford an attorney, I guess you deserve to go to prison.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#120153: Apr 26th 2016 at 11:44:44 AM

Sounds about right. And by "right", I mean "appropriately advances the Republican agenda of abolishing poverty by setting the poor on fire."

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#120154: Apr 26th 2016 at 11:46:06 AM

[up][up][up][up]

Welcome to democracy. I don't find the argument that people shouldn't be allowed to vote for something because they might vote wrong to be a persuasive argument.

You're assuming that democracy is always good. Remember that American republicanism was built on the principle of balancing democracy with liberalism (as in, people's personal liberties, not the modern definition). The judiciary has (since Marshall) been seen as one of the anchoring points of liberalism over democracy - it's one of the mechanisms that exist to tell "We the People" that no, we can't do that because it would be a violation of an individual's rights. Hence, insulating it from public pressure is probably a good thing. Alexis de Tocqueville once said that the judiciary kept American democracy from being "all sail and no anchor," and it can't do that if judges have to campaign for their positions.

So yeah, if the people might vote to remove the restraints on democracy in the Aristotelian sense (mob rule), the idea that they might vote wrong is an argument against letting them vote.

They literally can't do that. If the law says that the sentence for a given crime is between one and ten years imprisonment and a judge hands down a sentence of 30 years, that trial is going to appeal faster than you can say "miscarriage of justice" and the judge's ruling will be overturned. What judges can do is decide what sentence within that range is justified in the case at hand, but that's not the same thing as ignoring the law.

And if the appellate judges are elected, it's an election year and the defendant is black?

edited 26th Apr '16 11:48:08 AM by Ramidel

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#120155: Apr 26th 2016 at 11:51:53 AM

A racist judge usually is not going to apply a sentence that exceeds the federal maximum.

What he IS going to do is apply the federal maximum to every black defendant given a guilty verdict in his courtroom. He doesn't need to exceed the limit because the limits already tend to be a pretty wide margin to allow context-driven flexibility in sentencing.

Context, here, is supposed to have the definition of situations like, "THIS guy committed vehicular manslaughter while texting on his phone, and THAT guy committed the same crime while driving at 140 mph with enough alcohol in his system to kill a rhinoceros." But it gets interpreted by certain judges to mean, "That guy is black, so he gets the federal maximum."

edited 26th Apr '16 11:53:48 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#120156: Apr 26th 2016 at 11:53:09 AM

[up][up][up] Wait, what? What happened to "you have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be appointed to you"?

Assuming the group mentioned is one that handles those appointed defense attorneys.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#120157: Apr 26th 2016 at 11:56:17 AM

That only guarantees you a public defender. As I understand it, the LSC gives actual legal counsel and a real attorney, while a public defender's job is basically to convince you that the prosecution's plea bargain sounds really good and you should probably take it because if it goes to court, you're going to lose.

If you have to rely on a public defender, you might as well represent yourself because your chances of winning are about the same: circling the drain 'round "hopeless".

edited 26th Apr '16 11:58:44 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#120158: Apr 26th 2016 at 12:56:01 PM

[up]

Last Week Tonight with John Oliver covered that, too.

TL;DW - it's less that Public Defenders aren't interested in helping people, it's that most of them are severely overworked, to the point that they can only spend minutes on each case that's part of their workload.

edited 26th Apr '16 2:20:54 PM by ironballs16

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#120159: Apr 26th 2016 at 1:06:33 PM

You're assuming that democracy is always good.
No, I'm not assuming anything is always anything. I made a post arguing why, in the specific situation of local courts, there are valid arguments for electing rather than appointing judges.

And if the appellate judges are elected
Appellate courts are not local courts. I don't think anything above the very lowest level of the judiciary should be elected.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#120160: Apr 26th 2016 at 1:21:13 PM

The basic idea behind all judges being appointed is that that's how checks and ballences work, you have the directly elected leader (president, governor, mayor), the proportionally/representatives elected legislator (congress, state legislator, town council) and the professional appointed judiciary (supreme court, state courts, local judges). The idea is that the three systems compliment one another, the judges avoid tyranny of the majority while the elected groups avoid tyranny of the minority.

The system of separation of powers works, there's nothing special about a very local level that means it doesn't work out that level, if anything at a local level it's most important, because that's where the risk of tyranny of the majority is at its greatest.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
Lost in Space
#120161: Apr 26th 2016 at 1:45:14 PM

I voted! Sucks that I knew almost none of the names in the downticket primary races. Which is, I suppose, my own fault for not paying attention to them. Some dude was outside trying to get Democrats to write in the name of a local assemblyman candidate who was on the Republican ticket. I have no idea why. Democracy is weird.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Achaemenid HGW XX/7 from Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1 Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: Giving love a bad name
HGW XX/7
#120162: Apr 26th 2016 at 2:28:49 PM

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth.

Schild und Schwert der Partei
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#120163: Apr 26th 2016 at 2:48:35 PM

The system of separation of powers works, there's nothing special about a very local level that means it doesn't work out that level, if anything at a local level it's most important, because that's where the risk of tyranny of the majority is at its greatest.
What's different about the local level, at least in the United States, is that the makeup of local government varies hugely from state to state (and even occasionally within states). Separation of powers frequently doesn't really happen at the local level, usually because there's no legislative equivalent (generally because local governments can't pass laws). What you end up with is a bunch of executive positions (some elected, some appointed by local officials, some appointed by state officials) and the judiciary.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#120164: Apr 26th 2016 at 3:18:56 PM

If you've pulled one of the three groups then it's even more important to keep the two remaining groups separate, if there aren't three groups keeping each other in check then you need the two remaining groups to function differently so that they don't become one and undo all separation of power.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#120165: Apr 26th 2016 at 3:21:16 PM

Trump’s Right That The GOP Primary Is Unfair — It Favors Him. An analysis on how unbalanced the weight of votes in the Republican primary is - in some polities it takes 52 votes to elect a delegate in others over 10,000. This kind of imbalance has been banned for Congress for a long time.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#120166: Apr 26th 2016 at 3:29:06 PM

[up][up]Which is why I'm saying they should both be elected? If the executive branch appointed the judicial branch, as with traditional three-part separation of powers, then at the local level where the legislative branch is effectively nonexistent, that would mean that the elected executive can basically do whatever the hell they want. Faced with a judge that's also elected, however, that means the judge's loyalty is (at least theoretically) to the voters, rather than to the executive that appointed them, which means they're less likely to go along with whatever the executive wants just because the executive wants it.

edited 26th Apr '16 3:30:00 PM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
desdendelle Hooded Crow from Land of Milk and Honey (Sergeant) Relationship Status: Hiding
Hooded Crow
#120168: Apr 26th 2016 at 4:17:20 PM

@post 120163: "It's so" doesn't mean "it's good". The fact that the States themselves lack a legislature is another artefact of the weird way the United States were "built", as it were. Arguing that it means that you need to further tear down the putting-spokes-in-wheels act named "checks and balances" is like arguing that since the plumbing's not working, we might as well flood the house with sewage.

On empty crossroads, seek the eclipse -- for when Sol and Lua align, the lost shall find their way home.
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#120169: Apr 26th 2016 at 4:39:32 PM

[up][up]Not likely. If Warren wanted the hot seat, she'd have run for President and Sanders would be her veep candidate.

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#120170: Apr 26th 2016 at 4:49:22 PM

[up]X4 But shouldn't the judge's loyalty be to the law? Not to either the local electorate or to the local elected officials? They should be appointed but not by local politicians, I'm pretty sure my county council don't have any power over the country judiciary (as much as there is one) that would be insane. The local judges will be beholden to national judges, the chain of command only merges at the very top.

I'm pretty sure that's how most of the rest of the developed world does it, the judiciary is its own entirely self contained thing with links at the top to the rest of government, but the bottom level isn't linked at all.

edited 26th Apr '16 4:50:06 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
NativeJovian Jupiterian Local from Orlando, FL Since: Mar, 2014 Relationship Status: Maxing my social links
Jupiterian Local
#120171: Apr 26th 2016 at 5:23:06 PM

Arguing that it means that you need to further tear down the putting-spokes-in-wheels act named "checks and balances" is like arguing that since the plumbing's not working, we might as well flood the house with sewage.
You missed the point of what I was saying. In the traditional executive-legislative-judicial checks and balance system, it's a Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors sort of thing. Executive controls the Judicial (by making appointments), Judicial controls the Legislature (by ruling on the interpretation of laws, and nixing them entirely if they're found to be unconstitutional), and the Legislature controls the Executive (by writing the laws that set executive mandate). It's more complicated than that, of course, but that's the basic version.

Now, at the local level, there's basically no legislative branch, so it's essentially just the executive and the judicial. If the executive appoints the judicial, then the executive controls everything because they'll just appoint people who agree with them, so there's no checks and/or balances against the executive. By making judges an elected rather than appointed position, then they're able to serve as an effective check on/balance against the executive, since they're not beholden to the executive for their position.

In other words, in local politics, electing rather than appointing judges adds effective checks and balances rather than removing them.

And yes, adding a legislature at the local level and running everything just like at the higher levels of government would probably be an even more effective system, but doing so would require rewriting almost every state constitution in the country. Unlike the federal constitution, which reserves powers for the states, state constitutions give very little power to local governments — which is why there aren't any real legislatures below the state level. Whether this is a good thing or not you can decide for yourself, but it's the system we have at the moment and it's not changing in the foreseeable future, so in the meantime elected low-level judges is the best compromise we have.

But shouldn't the judge's loyalty be to the law? Not to either the local electorate or to the local elected officials?
We've been over that already. Judges are absolutely bound by the law, but they're still in charge of applying it to specific cases. If that didn't require some level of interpretation, then we wouldn't need judges in the first place. So different judges are going to apply the law differently, and someone's got to pick them, and now we're back to square one.

They should be appointed but not by local politicians, I'm pretty sure my county council don't have any power over the country judiciary (as much as there is one) that would be insane.
I couldn't comment on how local government works in the UK. The legal system there is strange and confusing to us Yankees here in the US politics thread.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#120172: Apr 26th 2016 at 5:25:54 PM

CNN calls Maryland, Pennsylvania and Connecticut for Trump and Maryland for Clinton.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#120173: Apr 26th 2016 at 5:35:15 PM

Being bound by the law and loyal to it are two different things, all judges are bound by the law, because you know it's the law, but being loyal to it? In both word and spirit? That's far from guaranteed. A judge's interpretation of the law should be based purely on the law and the case at hand, not on personal political concerns.

You've literally got judges handing out harsher sentences during election years, that's relay fucked up. A system where your punishment is determined not only by the crime you commit but also how close to an election you commit it one that is in need of change.

So yes we'e back to square one, how do you ensure a fair system that doesn't punish people extra harshly for political reasons while still ensuring judicial independence? By giving the power to appoint judges not to voters or local elected officials but to the judges higher up the judicial chain. The same way you don't vote on who's head of your local military base, their appointed by someone up the chain and the chain I'd st the top monitored by the proper oversight officials/other branches.

edited 26th Apr '16 5:45:17 PM by Silasw

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#120174: Apr 26th 2016 at 5:40:16 PM

Update: Trump has swept all five primaries tonight; Clinton takes Delaware.

http://www.cnn.com/politics

Sanders seems to be holding on in Connecticut and has a decent early lead in RI though.

edited 26th Apr '16 5:41:13 PM by Rationalinsanity

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
AdricDePsycho Rock on, Gold Dust Woman from Never Going Back Again Since: Oct, 2014 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Rock on, Gold Dust Woman
#120175: Apr 26th 2016 at 5:40:56 PM

Whelp, looks like Cruz and Kasich's alliance wasn't good enough to stop Trump.

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?

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