PSCI 4396 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Precommitment, Life Tenure, Microsoft Onenote
9 Feb 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Who the judge is matters a lot in the outcomes of court cases. No state completely fits the mold, every state is different. Over time, many people began to feel judges were too partial to the governor. Didn"t really act like the check on executive like they were supposed to. Remember, there wasn"t a lot of federal judicial capacity, state courts were extremely powerful. Partisan popular election was the popular thing to do. Begins a push to find a different way. Looks at new york, which has judges put on the bench through political machines. Affiliations of judges with these machines gave looks of corruption. Solution to this was a move to non-partisan elections. Idea of judges having to run for election raises serious questions. Judicial ethics codes said they can"t talk about theoretical decisions. Legal scholars didn"t like this idea of elections for judges. In 2002, sc ruled 1st amendment meant you couldn"t have judges follow these ethics.
