Election Results: Jon Budelmann won as District Attorney of Cayuga County. Jeff Brown, the judge who convicted Flores of a dismissed murder charge, won, but a distant third (3 judges elected). We get the government we deserve.
______________
The first Tuesday in November. The leaves falling off the trees obscured the signs falling off the telephone poles. It’s the day when the beauty pageant we know as judicial elections comes to a close, and the citizens of New York vote for judges. It’s not my favorite system, as I’ve noted before.
The county in which I live is not a place where I regularly practice. So many of the people running for judge are unfamiliar to me. A couple I’ve appeared before. A few I know outside of the office. There was one that I heard was a very good guy. And there was the judge who blew the Flores case.
Frankly, I could only identify a handful of candidates that I wanted to vote for. And I’m a lawyer. What are others supposed to do?
The answer is painfully obvious: They will vote their party line. Since the party that nominated the Flores trial judge is currently predominant, he will probably win. Would it change anything if they know about his monumental screw-up? It doesn’t matter. The electorate won’t know.
None of these judges will ever be up for nomination to the Supreme Court. How many of them keep up with the appellate court decisions that apply to them is unclear. These are working judges. They did their time in the party HQ, stuffing envelopes, making phone calls, licking stamps, and now they are candidates to be a judge.
I didn’t vote for anyone whose name I recognized from illegal signs. If they can’t conduct their campaign lawfully, how can they be a judge? But then, I likely rewarded candidates for their lack of effort rather than any principled decision not to break the law. They just didn’t have the money for signs, or decided not to make the effort. That certainly doesn’t speak well of them.
For those of you in states where judges are appointed and think judicial elections are the panacea that will return democracy to the judiciary, check out New York. We’re all searching for a better way. But since we elect them here, I voted for judge today. For better or worse, I fulfilled one of my civic duties. God save me.
______________
The first Tuesday in November. The leaves falling off the trees obscured the signs falling off the telephone poles. It’s the day when the beauty pageant we know as judicial elections comes to a close, and the citizens of New York vote for judges. It’s not my favorite system, as I’ve noted before.
The county in which I live is not a place where I regularly practice. So many of the people running for judge are unfamiliar to me. A couple I’ve appeared before. A few I know outside of the office. There was one that I heard was a very good guy. And there was the judge who blew the Flores case.
Frankly, I could only identify a handful of candidates that I wanted to vote for. And I’m a lawyer. What are others supposed to do?
The answer is painfully obvious: They will vote their party line. Since the party that nominated the Flores trial judge is currently predominant, he will probably win. Would it change anything if they know about his monumental screw-up? It doesn’t matter. The electorate won’t know.
None of these judges will ever be up for nomination to the Supreme Court. How many of them keep up with the appellate court decisions that apply to them is unclear. These are working judges. They did their time in the party HQ, stuffing envelopes, making phone calls, licking stamps, and now they are candidates to be a judge.
I didn’t vote for anyone whose name I recognized from illegal signs. If they can’t conduct their campaign lawfully, how can they be a judge? But then, I likely rewarded candidates for their lack of effort rather than any principled decision not to break the law. They just didn’t have the money for signs, or decided not to make the effort. That certainly doesn’t speak well of them.
For those of you in states where judges are appointed and think judicial elections are the panacea that will return democracy to the judiciary, check out New York. We’re all searching for a better way. But since we elect them here, I voted for judge today. For better or worse, I fulfilled one of my civic duties. God save me.
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I still can’t decide whether it’s better to have elected or appointed judges.
It’s one of those circular debates. I don’t think the answer is found in the big picture, but the details. What I endured today was not an election, but a farce.
The question is, what would give us a better system for placing competent, qualified and appropriate people on the bench? What are the details, safeguards that would make it happen? How would we prevent the politicians and interest groups from sticking their fingers into the system to screw it back up against?
Either elected or appointed could work. They just don’t seem to. How do we change that?
Call me Alexander Hamilton, but only let attorneys vote for judges.
Or make them non-partisan, which puts the candidate out of the Straight Ticket vote. Then, the only people that vote would presumably be those that actually knew about the candidates. This effectively makes it Hamiltonian anyway.
I think we need to fix a bigger problem first – let’s require justices to be lawyers. I live in a town with plenty of lawyers, but one of the jp’s is an ex-cop with no law degree. Honestly, he’s not that bad… but he’s not that good either.