I did not know that about the Athenian system, but that sounds awesome. I would implement that tomorrow.
I wholeheartedly disagree with MIR's view regarding elected vs. appointed judges. I could not possibly disagree more with every single point he made in that regard. I don't even know where to start...
It's seems that in most cases the person on trial is not completely guilty or innocent. I would think the prosecutor and defense attorney should set with the jury to determine the extent of guilt, as a set 1 to 10 for determining punishment if any. I think this would be a closer accounting of the crime.
No, you need to be completely guilty to be found guilty. Getting into degrees of guilt lowers the burden for proving guilt, that can't happen. Plea bargains shouldn't be used as a way for prosecutors to hedge their bets, they should be used for keeping people out of jail who may be guilty of a crime but who don't belong in jail.
Spracne, I'm not going to play the dax/tbt game with you. If you want to discuss something I've posted I'll be happy to do so, what I'm not going to do is engage in the pointless bullshit you pulled in your last reply to me. If you can't convey a coherent thought for me to address, I don't know why bother replying. If your point was simply that you disagree but can't tell us why, you have to know that literally no one cares who you disagree with. It's a message board, in which people give their opinions on various topics, it's a given that people will disagree, simply disagreeing with someone/anyone is in no way noteworthy. IMO.
In that case, I'm glad you asked. The people who founded this Country put at least a little thought into the new form of government they were creating from whole cloth. What we ended up with is now familiar, but at the time it was truly novel. Certain of these concepts were codified in our Constitution, and so they have endured.
The whole concept of a third branch of government was to act as a check on the more mercurial, political branches of government. To that end, it was decided that judges were to be appointed for life, pending good behavior (NB: this is the "check"; judicial officers may be impeached and removed for good cause).
Why would we appoint judges for life tenure, subject to good behavior? Because, that is the best way to promote impartiality and independence. Hopefully, only qualified jurists would be elevated to such a position, and they should be allowed to exercise their independent judgment without political pressure or perverse incentives. But in most state court systems, the judges who are actually incarcerating your run-of-the-mill "criminals" are elected officials. Their interests are often the same as the local D.A., i.e., to appear as "tough on crime" as the local voters prefer, even if the local sentiments are less than, uh, enlightened.
As catastrophe said, the electorate has proven themselves to be incompetent when it comes to this. Candidly, federal judges--who are appointed for life--are almost always far more competent than their state court peers.
In short, I believe wholeheartedly that, once appointed, judges should be removed from influence by political pressures.
