Over the past few months, there have been cases decided by judges in different states that have caused more than one person to wonder whether there is any justice in the justice system. Having reviewed the reports, I can't say I disagree with the lay people's anger.
The first case is the notorious Affluenza Defense from Texas. There, a wealthy teen killed four people while driving impaired with a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit. A sympathetic judge sentenced the boy to ten years' probation instead of a twenty years' jail term. The defense successfully argued that because of his privilege, he had what the expert termed affluenza, meaning that he was incapable of associating the consequences of his bad acts with those acts. Needless to say, outrage was the principal reaction to the sentence.
Meanwhile, in Montana, a teacher who had unconsensual sex with a fourteen-year-old who later committed suicide was originally sentenced to three years of sex offender treatment but after he was tossed out of the program for consorting with young people, thirty-one days in jail. As with the affluenza case, there was, correctly, righteous indignation. Upon appeal, the Montana state supreme court remanded the case (to a different judge) to calculate a different sentence. At least the higher court undid a travesty. It remains to be seen whether the Texas courts will do the same.
Lay people see outcomes like these and wonder, rightly, about our judicial system. What's interesting to note is that in these cases, both victims and offenders were white or Latina (in the Montana case, the victim was a young Latina), as were the judges. No blacks were involved. So at least insofar as theses cases were concerned, there was no overt racial bias in favor of the defendants.
Part of the problem that lay people don't understand is that with most state court judges, elections are used to fill the slots. Irrespective of various ratings from bar associations, usually less qualified candidates are elected who belong to the more powerful party. In Illinois, there have been several elections wherein the far less qualified candidate was elected simply because he was backed by the all-powerful Democratic Party, which controls the state. In Cook County, Republicans are almost nonexistent. It's not that Republicans, per se, make better judges. But where there's no competition, there is a dilution of the talent pool.
Montana has non-partisan elections, whereas Texas and Illinois have partisan elections. Either way, voting, not merit, decides who wears a robe. Sometimes the voters get it right; more often than not, they vote for the Irish surname, or the more monied candidate, or the person they know, rather than demonstrated legal capacity. Incumbent judges win an ungodly percentage of the time, meaning that incompetence is not only rewarded, it's entrenched. Although state judicial positions are not lifetime positions, they become such because of the ignorance of the electorate.
Federal judges are nominated and then appointed. The vetting process is much more stringent than that used to slate candidates for state courts. To be sure, not every federal judge is competent, but compared to the state courts, federal judges are much, much better. It stands to reason: Where choices can be made and have to be approved, they chances that they will result in better quality are greater than a largely uninformed electorate voting in what is essentially a popularity contest. Voting for representatives is one thing, because those positions result in a more immediate and telling impact on the lives of voters. Judicial decisions like the ones cited here only affect those people involved in the cases themselves. It's only when the broader questions are litigated that the lives of the hoi polloi are affected...and those decisions are reviewable by federal courts for constitutionality.
Other than courts in the Ninth Circuit -- that seem to decide cases by using Ouija boards, astrology and dice -- most federal courts are simply superior to state courts. As a result, outcomes like those in Texas, Montana and Illinois are subject to ridicule.
(c) 2014 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
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