On May 17, some Indiana voters filed a federal lawsuit against the way Indiana chooses Superior Court Judges. In 89 of the 92 counties, judges are elected in partisan elections. But in Marion, Lake, and St. Joseph Counties, a merit panel chooses three potential judges for each seat, and the Governor chooses one of those three. The voters in those three counties therefore do not elect judges; all they can do is vote to accept or reject the gubernatorial choices.
The existing system for Marion County was passed after federal courts struck down that county’s old system, in which each party was only permitted to run nominees for half the seats, which meant that the voters had no choice, because generally only the Democratic and Republican Parties ran candidates for Superior Court Judge, so the elections were a foregone conclusion.
The case is Roberts v State and Holcomb, s.d., 1:23cv-828. Here is the Complaint. It charges that the unequal treatment of voters violates the federal Voting Rights Act as well as the Indiana Constitution. Thanks to ElectionLawBlog for this hews.
I have come to the conclusion that the electoral college is a good idea – for ratifying judicial appointments.
This could be done on the state level, too. There could be electors chosen from each legislative district whose sole function would be to vote judicial appointments up or down.
IMO, it would be a good idea if only people who have actually served on a jury would be eligible to be a judicial elector. Then folks would have some motivation for accepting jury duty.
Maybe, like jurors, they could be chosen by lottery, rather than elected.
@WZ,
In larger counties, there can be dozens of judges. If they are partisan, it is likely that they will all be of one party (usually Democratic).
NONPARTISAN JUDICS VIA APPV – PENDING CONDORCET
ALSO — HAVE LIMITS ON NUMBERS/TERMS OF JUDGES PER AREA / SUBAREA —
9 TOTAL – 3 PER EVEN YEAR – 6 YEAR TERMS
ETC.
IE ESP LOCAL JUDGES DEALING WITH LOCAL FELONS.
JUDGE — CONVICTED FELON A IN MY JUDIC DISTRICT —
Z YEARS IN THE STATE SLAMMER FOR FELON A.
Why is warehousing criminals the best way to deal with them? It seems insane to me. They cost the taxpayers a lot of money to keep warehoused. Prisons are not a serious deterrent to crime, because criminals tend to be people with short time horizons who discount the risk of prison as opposed to the immediate rewards of crime. For many of them prison is not even much of a punishment at all, as they have many previous incarceration in juvenile and adult facilities, many friends in there, etc. Some of them consider it to be like a college of criminal knowledge where they network with fellow criminals and learn from each other, hatch and perfect schemes, etc.
There is no serious evidence that prisons rehabilitate people. If anything, they are more likely to cause them to commit more serious crimes when they get out, and most do get out sooner or later. Many go back and forth through a revolving door, while others learn to engage in criminal activity without getting caught. Corrupt prison staff and family and other visitors are among the common methods of getting every manner of contraband into prisons.
There is no risk of starvation or any serious risk of death from exposure to the elements in prisons, job opportunities are guaranteed, and medical care is provided. There are even educational programs and all sorts of other criminal coddling nonsense which actually make jails and prisons an attractive opportunity for some people who are unemployed, homeless, etc. Some people who have spent most of their lives in and out of prison feel more at home in prison than while released and actually get caught for crimes on purpose to not have to worry about making a living and other problems adult humans normally have to solve.
There are many other ways to punish prisoners and deter crime much more effectively, without the costs to the taxpayers which jails and prisons represent. Those other methods don’t result in criminals who are more vicious and dangerous than when they went in being let out on the streets. They don’t come with the risk of prison escapes or provide a setting for criminal bosses to live comfortably at taxpayers expense while communicating orders to underlings outside prison to direct criminal enterprises.
To be effective at preventing crime, punishment needs to be swift, sure, and severe. Organized crime elements know how to deal with petty street crime and keep it out of the neighborhoods where their families live. When they catch petty criminals who are dumb enough to operate in the areas they should know to stay out of, they are dealt with brutally, quickly, and without appeals or getting off on technicalities. Consequently those neighborhoods are very safe and all but the dumbest and most insane of criminals know to go elsewhere. If organized criminals were dealt with in the same fashion by the police, crime would be nearly nonexistent. The people who would then still commit crimes would likely be better candidates for a lunatic asylum than a prison, or their execution could be considered a form of mercy killing , as with a rabid animal.
Your country might also wish to consider that one good way to reduce your crime rates would be to stop importing criminals, criminal gangs, and crime prone demographic and social groups from all over the world. Even if you otherwise fail to grasp the folly of the “melting pot” or “tossed salad” or whatever other nonsensical euphemism for the tower of Babel standing amidst Sodom and Gemorah might conjure, wouldn’t it seem obviously moronic to import other countries’ crime problems, as if you did not already have enough of your own?
How often repeated would the “Statue of Liberty” poem be if it forthrightly said “bring me your rapists, your murderers, your narcotraffickers and child molesters…”? If no other reason to get serious about border control and immigration policies strikes you as valid, shouldn’t that at least do it, or is the progressive brain cancer at such an advanced stage that very few of you are even minimally capable of the most simple kind of national suicide prevention or logical thought of even the most basic and elementary sort?