Rent-A-Judge: Coming Soon to a Court Near You!

While scanning this morning's Sunday L.A. Times, a front-page story attracted my attention: "Call of the West: Rein In the Judges." I was immediately concerned. In the wake of an increasingly emasculated Congress and an Executive branch that is seeking ever more unchecked power, I've looked to the courts as a final bastion in the triad of checks-and-balances that our forefathers enshrined in the Constitution. Where congressional representatives can be thrown out of office, and the president is by law (thus far!) restricted to a total of two terms, judges are theoretically removed from the political process, and therefore are independent to a large degree from the political process.

This could change, as early as this fall. As the article states,

South Dakota's ballot contains the most radical provision: It would empower citizens to sue judges over their rulings.

and

Other proposals would... give Montana residents the right to recall judges over any "dissatisfaction."

This is extremely dangerous. If I don't like how a judge ruled, I could sue him? If I'm dissatisfied with a judge, I can recall her? These are small, rural, fairly conservative states. But precedents have a way of spreading. What happens if a larger state like Texas or Florida decides to imitate South Dakota and Montana? What about New York, or heaven forbid, here in California??

For one thing, our courts could conceivably be clogged with even more challenges and lawsuits than ever before. Personal vendettas or narrow political battles could be focused on one or two targeted individuals. Even more insidious is the potential for politically motivated targeting of a handful of jurists in an effort to change the makeup of an entire court, such as a state Supreme Court or High Court. Additionally, it would cause judges to become extremely sensitive to politics, where ideally and historically, judges have been above such concerns.

"Judges are there to protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. They are not there to do the popular will," said Doreen Dodson, a St. Louis attorney who chairs the American Bar Assn.'s committee on judicial independence. "They are accountable to the law and the Constitution."

I agree- that's how it *should* be. The law is and should be the primary concern of any jurist-- to inject pure politics would pervert rulings and potentially stack the deck in favor of a small, highly motivated group, whether on the right or the left, to the detriment of the populace at large.

South Dakota's law is an example of how extreme this could be:

Under the amendment judges in the state could lose their jobs or assets if citizens disliked how they sentenced a criminal, resolved a business dispute or settled a divorce. "We want to give power back to the people," said Jake Hanes, a spokesman for the measure.

So if I got divorced, and I didn't like how the settlement went, I could conceivably sue the judge? That's frightening. I'm not sure I want "the people" to have that much power. If we're going to go in that direction, we might as well invest EVERYONE as a judge, and make our own decisions, and let everyone operate their own court. But that wouldn't work-- it'd lead to chaos.

Not everyone is going to like every verdict that is or was ever passed down. I certainly don't approve of some of the hacks that have been appointed to the Supreme Court in recent years. But the vitriol aimed at judges in the last few years, especially from the Right (anyone recall Ann Coulter's suggestion that someone poison Justice Stevens? Or Tom De Lay's pronouncement that "judges will answer for their behavior"?), worries me. So do these initiatives and proposals, many championed by right-wingers. If we're going to go this route, I fully expect to see ads in a few years for rent-a-judges. Don't like a verdict? Go judge shopping! While you're at it, use that copy of the Constitution you've got for toilet paper, or firewood, because we aren't really going to have that country anymore-- the checks and balances we've had for so long will be out the door.