Am I missing something? She did her job as a defense attorney should and she is now a judge. I just want to point out that the keyword of this article is “elected”.
I thought the whole point of lawyers was that everybody gets one? Is there any shame in defending El Chapo?
My thoughts exactly. I mean, you could reject a case, I suppose, but it seems that all those “what it takes to be a good lawyer” stories have the hero defending an indefensible monster meerly because everyone deserves a solid defense. i.e. that tom hanks movie about him defending a Soviet spy.
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ELI5 why would you elect a judge? You want judge to be independent from politics and just legal expert, here to apply strictly the law and limit as much as possible the weight of their personal opinions, so every citizen is judged the same way.
Electing judge seems backward and totally opposite to that goal
This entirely depends on your point of view.
We also passively vote on the law by electing the people in charge of passing it. Why not also vote on the people interpreting it?
How else do you want to fill the position for a judge? By a panel of experts? Who decides who is part of this panel? Who decides what the selection process is?
Effectively there is a popular voting process somewhere. The debate is only where exactly in the chain.
What are the other options?
Edit: why would someone down vote a question? It’s not like it’s even a leading question.
I’ll try to answer myself. Options for how a judge is put in their position:
Elected or appointed. Are there any other options?
If they are appointed then you better really trust whoever does the appointing because you will have no recourse if they are a bad fit.
With an entrance exam, which involve a panel of judges and university professor, and the N best grades get the available positions. To limit corruption, at leas where I am, these exam are anomyzed (even one you take at university are), so the people doing the grading doesn’t know who they grade, and only afterwards another person checks the name and the grade
Peer selected is also a possibility, as well as passing a law exam, like the bar but for judges.
Passing an exam sounds good to me, but the paranoid part of me thinks that requirement could be manipulated and corrupted. Even so, that would only give you a pool to select from. It doesnt decide who gets which position. As far as having peer selection, that would be very vulnerable to turning into a good ole boy network.
Mexico is doomed.
